At first glance, today’s WL news release (NR) might have perceived to be anti-climatic given that trading was halted for this announcement. In fact, our good friend franz mentioned it may have been “a little out of character” for Nemis/NOT to halt for such news. Although our other good friend Al has got his knickers in a bit of a kNOT (heh,heh) over this, one (notice that word again Sum4all) must ‘read’ beyond the assay results to truly appreciate why this is indeed very good news, i.e., significant for NOT, and therefore ‘haltworthy’. 

As some of the longs have understood, a major problem for WL, despite all of its great gold assays, is the complexity of the mineralized structure(s) and the apparent lack of continuity. That is, although NOT had drilled many great holes at WL, they have not been able to put together all of the pieces of the puzzle to reveal the ‘picture’ of the gold mineralized structures at WL to understand the deposit scale/size, which is necessary for a 43-101 resources calculation – the puzzle pieces (drill results) are of little value if they cannot be assembled to reveal the big picture, i.e., solve the puzzle. 

To give you an example, KXL “drill hole HR07-29, which graded 54.1 gpt (1.57 opt) gold over a mineable width of 2.0m, including 134.4 gpt (3.9 opt) gold over 0.8m, and drill hole HR07-31, which graded 12.64 gpt gold over 1.4m.” Those holes were drilled 1,340 meters (1.34km) apart on the same quartz vein structure, thereby confirming the continuity of gold mineralization. So far NOT has not been able to due this at WL, which explains why the share price (market cap) did not increase the way KXL’s did after its news release – continuity and scale are everything. 

What is significant in NOTs latest WL release is that they are advancing their understanding of the geological setting at WL, which is the key to unlocking the WL geological mystery. The NR states: 

“Past work by Tracy Armstrong, P.Geo., has suggested that gold mineralization lies within a series of narrow, parallel zones that trend ENE and dip steeply northwards. Second order structures were interpreted to occur with an influence on the gold mineralization; however the orientation of these structures could not be positively identified with the previous amount of drilling. The current results broadly confirm this interpretation, however, variations in grades and widths suggesting that the significance of the other, possibly, second order structural controls may be significant.”  

and: 

“...linking surface showings and existing shallow drill intersections… The intersections in holes 134, 143 and 144 lie generally on strike with theNOT-06-100 zone. Hole 143 in particular underlines the potential dimensions ofhigh-grade mineralization.” 

If you look at the assay for hole 143, you will see that we have 7m of 4gpt at depth of 4 – 11 metres! Basically you mine this stuff with your Leatherman (multi-tool pocket knife) its that close to surface. This economics of surface (open-pit) mining are vastly superior to underground mining, so although we have grades and widths that would be economic underground (compare these results to KXL’s), they are shallow enough to benefit form much lower cost open-pit mining. This is analogous to DE where we are encountering very high Cu-Ni-PGM mineralization at depths shallow enough to be surfaced mined – a double whammy, so to speak. A high grade gold deposit at ‘surface’ would be like mining Fort Knox.  

The bottom line is that NOT is beginning to connect the dots at WL on a very high grade gold deposit that is mineable from surface.  This news is nothing short of significant, and worth every minute of a halt – if KXL halted for our news, then obviously its both appropriate and necessary for NOT to halt for their gold news of significance. That is just responsible management. 

The problem for us, and what irritates people like Al, is that NOT has too many projects with great news – we now unfortunately have to assign ‘degrees of significance’ to our each of great news releases… Pity.

When we get the ‘wrong’ great news, people are not happy. 

Regards, B.