Alaska Silver CEO Aaron Schutt on a Record 9,496 Metres at Illinois Creek

Trevor Hall (0:15)

Alaska Silver said it had a record-breaking drill program this year at Illinois Creek. Illinois Creek is a large-scale carbonate replacement deposit system, and the company says it has upside potential and scale.

Illinois Creek is located in Western Alaska, and the site of a former mine, Aaron Schutt, he assumed CEO duties for retiring Kit Marrs three weeks ago. Aaron, welcome to Mining Stock Daily. Congratulations.

Aaron Schutt (0:42)

Thank you. Glad to be here. Appreciate the chance to talk to you today.

Trevor Hall (0:46)

Now, Aaron, in your October 8th news release, you said the original 6,000-meter drill program was completed early, which allowed to push out to 9,496. Why is this extra 3,500 meters meaningful?

Aaron Schutt (1:00)

Well, as people in middle Alaska know, you only have a certain amount of time in the summer before it gets cold and dark, and maximizing your time during the summer is critically important. So we had drills available, we had crews available, we had to raise a little extra money to continue the work, and obviously this is a large district with a lot of potential, so the more holes you can get in the ground, the better your chance to advance the project.

Trevor Hall (1:30)

When do you think the results from the assays will start to trickle in, and in what order? I believe that those drillers, I believe that the Corps has to take a bit of a securitas rope to get down to the lab assays. I saw Barge in western Alaska, Mexico, and then US.

Aaron Schutt (1:48)

Yeah that's right. So the short answer is they are trickling in already, but the order and predictability, because things go out by airplane, usually to Anchorage or Fairbanks, and then sometimes by truck to Canada, or United States, or even Mexico, to get the assays done, and the samples sometimes are split up. So how it comes in is a little bit unpredictable, but they are starting to come in. We expect results, you know, from this time of year through the goals of the calendar, or maybe a little bit in January.

Trevor Hall (2:23)

Um, Aaron, at the top of your deck, you do mention gallium potential at WBC and Silver Sage. In your deck, you said that the critical mineral could lead to faster permitting and non-dilutive government funding. Where does that potentially stand right now in terms of being able to get government interested in what you're finding with gallium there?

Aaron Schutt (2:46)

Yeah, so we have submitted some applications with a couple of different US federal government agencies that are very interested in gallium. It's at the top of the critical minerals list.

The Department of Defense, the Department of Energy are two. Department of Commerce also has money available in the critical minerals space to facilitate development. So we don't have a commitment from the federal government yet, but I will be making a trip with one of our other senior members of the team here in a few weeks to Washington, DC to do some follow up on that.

I think I've seen around Alaska a number of different minerals companies at different stages getting some help from the federal government, both on the money side as well as on the permitting and other necessary aspects of project development. So a lot of different things they can do to help us. And the state government is the same. They might not have as much money, but they can also help facilitate certain aspects of development.

Trevor Hall (3:48)

Now you said in the October 8th news release, the drilling and metallurgical samples will provide important information towards a possible preliminary economic assessment. What data do you have right now and what needs to be filled in still?

Aaron Schutt (4:02)

Yes, so there's a lot of historic data from the operations of the Illinois Creek mine in the late 1990s and very early 2000s.

But there's a lot that wasn't done at that time. Some full assays weren't available for much of that system, even though 550 drill holes were completed during the exploration and development and production time frame of that mine. Metallurgy is something we're definitely focused on in terms of the gold and silver, but there's also fairly significant copper in that ore body and getting the metallurgy right so that the next time we, when we develop the mine, we have the flow sheets correct to maximize recoveries of hopefully all three metals.

Trevor Hall (4:54)

Can you talk a little bit about the copper? I believe that when the mine was operating there in the 90s, it wasn't something that was recovered, but I believe since we've just had these rocketing copper prices, then it certainly makes sense there right now with what you're focused on at Illinois.