Hi Bulldozer!

A manto is a different animal than a vein deposit. With veins, once you have done so low angle drilling to establish the strike and dip, it is just a matter of punching lateral holes to step out and then following up with a series to depth until the vein pinches out. With a manto, its more of a flat lying ore body and it can extend outwards in both dimensions. They have hit it once now and they will probably put in what is called a drill fence, where the next hole steps out from the first one at a steeper angle so it hits the same depth but further along. You can do several such holes from the same drill pad and space them such that there are no gaps between one drill hole to the next since they overlap. If they try for a 50-60m spacing they can generate an infered resource from that data.

The big problem is that the wider angle you go with the rig, the longer the drill core has to be to reach the same depth. Its a basic calculus equation and from what I am reading they are close to the limit of the range for the drill. Probably the best solution is to open a drill pad even further down in the mine to shorten the length they must drill to reach the ore zone.

cheers!

mike