Technical Report Rajapalot Property Mineral Resource Estimate NI 43-101 Technical Report Mawson Gold Limited
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AMC Consultants Pty Ltd ABN 58 008 129 164 Level 29, 140 William Street Melbourne Vic 3000 Australia T +61 3 8601 3300 E [email protected] W amcconsultants.com Technical Report Rajapalot Property Mineral Resource Estimate NI 43-101 Technical Report Mawson Gold Limited Location Ylitornio – Rovaniemi, Finland In accordance with the requirements of National Instrument 43-101 “Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects” of the Canadian Securities Administrators Qualified Persons: R Webster B.App.Sc. MAusIMM, M.AIG K Forrester CEng, MIChemE, MAusIMM AMC Project 120026 Effective date 14 September 2020 Unearth a smarter way Rajapalot Property Mineral Resource Estimate NI 43-101 Technical Report Mawson Gold Limited 120026 1 Summary 1.1 Introduction AMC Consultants Pty Ltd (AMC) was commissioned by Mawson Gold Ltd (Mawson) to report the results of a Mineral Resource estimate for the Rajapalot Gold-Cobalt Project (property located in Lapland, Finland). This Mineral Resource has been reported according to the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (CIM) Definition Standards (2014) and the report is written in accordance with the requirements of National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101) “Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects” of the Canadian Securities Administrators. This report is an update to the December 2018 report. A site visit was carried out in October 2018 by Rod Webster Principal Geologist who is acting as the Qualified Person (QP) for reporting of the Mineral Resource estimate. The information, conclusions, opinions, and estimates contained herein are based on: • Information available to AMC at the time of preparation of this report. • Assumptions, conditions, and qualifications as set forth in this report. • Data, reports, and other information supplied by Mawson. 1.2 Tenements On 30 April 2010, Mawson entered into an agreement with AREVA Finland (AREVA) whereby the Company acquired 100% of AREVA’ s mineral properties and exploration database in exchange for €1 million (M). The Rompas-Rajapalot property (Property) consists of three granted exploration permits in legal force with an additional two exploration permits which are under standard bi-or tri-annual renewals. Also, the Property includes nine (9) exploration permit applications and one reservation. 1.3 Location and ownership The Property is centred roughly at coordinates 3,408,600E by 7,373,000N of the Finnish national coordinate system (KKJ), Zone 3. It is located approximately 35 kilometres (km) west-southwest of the city of Rovaniemi in southern Lapland, Finland. Access by road from Rovaniemi is via highway E75 south-westerly for 24 km to the junction of highway 930, just past the town of Muurola. The topography is gently rolling to almost flat, heavily glaciated and inundated with numerous post-glacial lakes, till, eskers, lacustrine and fluvial deposits. The climate is classified as subarctic with an average temperature of +0.2°C. 1.4 Geology and mineralization The Property lies within the Karelia tectonic province in a Paleoproterozoic supracrustal sequence known as the Peräpohja belt (PB). This is comprised of quartzites, mafic sills and volcanics and volcaniclastics, carbonate rocks, black shales, mica schists and greywackes unconformably overlying Archean rocks of the Pudasjärvi Complex (PuC). Granitoid intrusions ranging from 2.05 to 1.78 Ga occur throughout the project. 1.5 Exploration and drilling All core recoveries were excellent and averaged close to 100% in fresh rock. Photographing and logging were conducted in Mawson’s Rovaniemi facilities and in those of the Geological Survey of amcconsultants.com ii Rajapalot Property Mineral Resource Estimate NI 43-101 Technical Report Mawson Gold Limited 120026 Finland (GTK). Core intervals, averaging 1 m for mineralized samples and 2 m for barren samples, were cut in half at the GTK core facilities in Rovaniemi. Drill core orientation was completed on PAL drillholes with the bottom of hole marked with a continuous line. This line on the remaining half core was retained for verification and reference purposes. 1.6 Assay data Samples were prepared at Kempele and analyzed for gold at Raahe where the PAL1000 technique was used. This involves grinding the sample in steel pots with abrasive media in the presence of cyanide, followed by measuring the gold in solution with flame AAS equipment. Fire assay techniques follow ALS laboratory standard procedures. Where fire assay techniques have been used as the primary or verification method for gold analysis, these samples have been submitted to ALS preparation facilities either in Piteå or Sodankylä. Whilst on site from the 8 and 9 October 2018 the QP carried out the following: • Compared some laboratory assay certificates with the assay database and found no errors. • Observed the geological logging and sampling of the core. • Reviewed the core against core logs for a number of drillholes. • Observed the drilling, logging, sampling, subsampling and core cutting operations. • Visited the project area. The QP considers the drillhole data is suitable for estimation and reporting Mineral Resource estimates. Based on quality control and quality assurance results the QP is satisfied about the adequacy of the sample preparation, security and analytical procedures. The procedures follow industry best-practice guidelines and are reviewed frequently. 1.7 Mineral processing and metallurgical testing To date a single campaign of mineral processing and metallurgical testing has been completed (SGS Minerals UK; Gopalakrishnan 2014), with a second, more comprehensive program underway. The first work was preliminary in nature and limited to the recovery of gold on material sourced from the Palokas deposit. The early testwork programme was conducted prior to the broader discovery of the Raja deposit as well as the inclusion of cobalt as a potentially economic metal. Gravity release analysis tests reported by SGS included recoveries of between 26% and 48%. Further, cyanidation of the gravity tails demonstrated the recovery of leachable gold not recovered during gravity concentration. The combined gravity concentration and cyanidation test resulted in an overall gold recovery of between 95%. There was good reconciliation between the gold grades as calculated from testing assays and the expected grades provided by Mawson. Further metallurgical test work is currently underway, with Mawson a participant of Finland’s BATCircle consortium, a program designed to value-add to the Finnish battery metals circular economy. BATCircle was founded under the leadership of Aalto University to coordinate research on the battery metal circular economy from exploration to recycling. BATCircle includes 22 companies, four universities, two research institutes, and two cities. 1.8 Mineral Resource estimate A Mineral Resource was estimated using a block model and ordinary kriging to estimate the gold and cobalt block grades. amcconsultants.com iii Rajapalot Property Mineral Resource Estimate NI 43-101 Technical Report Mawson Gold Limited 120026 Based on pit optimization the Inferred Mineral Resources, estimated for the three deposits is shown in Table 1.1. The cut-offs used within the optimized pits and below the pits, based on AuEq cut-offs (where AuEq =Au (g/t) + Co/1,430 (ppm)) are: • 1.1 g/t AuEq below the optimal pits, potentially to be accessed by underground methods (termed UG). • 0.3 g/t AuEq for the deposits within their optimal pit (termed pit). Table 1.1 Inferred Mineral Resource estimate as of 14 September 2020 Cut-off Tonnes Au AuEq Au Co AuEq Zone Co (ppm) (AuEq) (kt) (g/t) (g/t) (koz) (Tonnes) (kOz) Raja Pit 0.3 3,055 2.5 474 2.8 247 1,448 279 Raja UG 1.1 641 1.6 1293 2.5 33 829 52 Raja total 3,696 2.4 616 2.8 280 2,277 331 Palokas Pit 0.3 3,218 1.8 531 2.1 182 1,709 221 Palokas UG 1.1 1,729 2.3 572 2.7 128 989 151 Palokas total 4,947 2.0 545 2.3 311 2,698 371 Rumajärvi Pit 0.3 289 0.8 397 1.1 7 115 10 Rumajärvi UG 1.1 35 1.2 476 1.6 1 17 2 Rumajärvi total 324 0.8 406 1.2 9 131 12 Total Pit 0.3 6,562 2.1 499 2.4 437 3,273 510 Total UG 1.1 2,405 2.1 763 2.6 163 1,834 204 Total 8,967 2.1 570 2.5 600 5,107 715 Notes: • CIM Definition Standards (2014) were used for Mineral Resource classification. • Totals may not compute exactly due to rounding. • AuEq=Au+Co/1,430 based on assumed prices of Co $17.28/lb and Au $1,694/oz. • Drilling results to 1 July 2020. • Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Pit optimization was carried out for Raja and Palokas deposits using Whittle software to define the areas that could be mined by open pit methods compared to underground methods and demonstrate reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction. The Mineral Resource estimate cut-offs were based on these parameters also. The parameters used in the pit optimization are as follows: • Gold price – US$1,694/oz • Cobalt price – US$17.28/lb • Processing cost of US$12.00/t • Processing recovery gold of 97% • Processing recovery cobalt of 80% • G&A costs of US$2.35/t • Selling cost US$0.75/t oz Au • Royalty 0.15% of revenue • Processing rate 1 Mtpa • Mining cost at the surface was $1.50/t • Mining cost increased by $0.02 per 5 m bench • Model has been regularized to an SMU of 5 m x 5 m x 2.5 m to account for dilution • Discount rate 8% • Overall slope angle of 50° amcconsultants.com iv Rajapalot Property Mineral Resource Estimate NI 43-101 Technical Report Mawson Gold Limited 120026 • No allowance for capital was included • The additional cost for mining ore is US$0.60/t Note the chosen prices for gold and cobalt are by reference to the CIBC Mining Group Analyst Consensus Commodity Price Forecast.