What the 2016 drilling program will tell IMG (and MXI)The two main parts of the 2016 drilling program are the 66 completed RC holes in the newly permitted Diakha extension and the DD program targeting several rich blocks which are unknown in depth because of previous shallow drilling.
1. RC Drilling in the extension
This will confirm that Diakha (and Siribaya) have enough quantiti of ounces to meet their desired threshold for a standalone mine. Internally, their parmeter is a minimum 2 million oz. With an unconstrained Diakha pit plus Siribaya, they are almost there already but not quite. The current RC drilling plus the Siribaya drilling should raise the ounces to between 2.5 and 3million oz.
2. DD Drilling in Diakha
This isn't mainly about adding ounces, but IMG is already looking ahead at possible extraction with these holes. They want to know how deep and how rich those blocks are so they can narrow down the best place to target for extraction.
3. Bonus for MXI
The RC drilling in the northern extension will inform MXI as to whether the probabilities of mineralization in Karita will increase or decrease. Should the northern drilling line in the extension produce good results, it raises the prospective value of Karita. I expect we will see plans advance quickly in Karita should the RC in the extension indicate good results.
4. Other
There is a budget amount set aside for some AC and Auger drilling in some new areas adjacent to Boto that are highly prospective. So far, nothing has been said about whether that is in progress, or if they are saving some of that budget to test out some additional spots in Diakha that need attention after analyzing the RC results. Either way, there could be some pleasant upside surprises with that.