Hello stainless, riskit and rst

There are many good points raised in your posts. I will try to provide comments on them, but not in any particular order.

1. Scotia Analyst and the current drill results: These 2 items should be separated

- Analyst: He seems to be out there by himself with his own model predicting the resource (of 2.63Moz). This is a joke, since he did not even provide an explanation why his model is more appropriate than that used by certified professional consultants to produce the initial estimate for the pit-constrained resource of 4.3 Moz. The resource estimate for the pit unconstrained assumption is much higher (some 6Moz?). All this was before the discovery of the HGZ. More about the work of this analyst in later post. But I question his input assumptions used in his model (whatever it is ... garbage in garbage out), and the criteria he used to determine if the project is economical viable (is he certified to carry out a PEA?).

- HGZ: We have two zones, one from about 1000SE to 2000SE (minus about 200m for the wedge = ~800m)); the other the new one, the 600m extension, which is the topic of discussion which should not be mixed with the credibility of the analyst conclusions.

2. As stainless said, the 600m results are not bad (actually he said "fantastic"). The grades are a bit lower, but some grades are very good. Dave mentioned the extension to the SE with results of 1 hole at 2600SE. Agreed with that, but he has not mentioned that the "hits, at high grades" appear to be at shallower levels to the SW. Check any of his fan drilling x-section results, e.g. 2400SE, for the trend pointing to ~10 o'clock position.

3. If the HGZ is extending to the SW then it would be a good idea to do some drilling either from a barge, or from one of the islands (the larger would be better) since the SW edge of the HGZ is ~200m from the island. Is there any cottage on that island? Any with local knowledge?

4. Undershooting: As explained by rst, drilling at an angle with an assumption of a plunge toward the SE based on previous results, seemed to have "missed" the sweet spots. Another way to look at this is that the drills only "hit" the bottom part of the HGZ due to angle drilling (Mother Nature is playing trick on us). It would explain better if someone can draw this picture showing what we caught only a portion of the belly of a sting ray with one wing (x-section) tilling up to the surface in the SW direction. We still need to complete in the upper portion of the sting ray body. A picture is worth a thousand words, as usual. Can a picture be pasted in the message?

5. Drilling straight down: One way to determine how thick the body of this string ray would be to drill staright down, from a barge (I would move that barge in the SW direction to determine the edge of the HGZ). rst, if you have a chance to talk to Dave again, perhaps you could mention this option to him (FCU drilled from barge before when Paterson Lake South was not iced up)? It may cost a bit more, but the drill rig would be more versatile/mobile (you can tow it to various location, just pull off anchors, sounds easy eh?)

6.Horizontal drilling: riskit mentioned the drilling technique used in the oil industry, essentially the drillers can steer the drill bit to a desirable angle including horizontal. In fact KWG and BOL is drilling using this technique at BH in the RoF in their JV property with FNC. This could be used to check out the extension to the SE (or other direction) by mounting the drill on firm ground (my favourite spot is the large island near the Narrows).

goldhunter