"Vectoring to the high grade coreof mineralization at depths exceeding 500m is the challenge faced by our geological team..." - from the last NR. Vectoring is the key term and there are several mentions of vectoring within the new release. Perhaps it's less about hitting increasing grade (eg. 0.5g/t, 1g/t, etc.) inching towards something economic as many suspect, but rather striking the actual Au mineralized core of the system and hitting high grade / wide intercept.
The hole just completed is for vectoring purposes..."RZDDH10-07....to determine the width of the zone and vector to the central core of the system."
EC has another shot after the just completed #7 with *lucky* hole #8 within the current contract..."On completion of this hole, the Company will have drilled approximately 4100m in 7 holes to total depth. According to the current drilling contract with TerraNova, the current terms and conditions may be extended to 5000m." If the vectoring from #6, 7 prove valuable, odds increase that #8 could be the one we're waiting for.
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Thanks for the kind words SR. There continues to be a heap of positive noises coming from Ecuador's government that large-scale mining will happen. Exploitation agreements are the main concern at this point. Ecuador is pretty hostile towards oil companies and say they will not allow them (dirty word "transnationals") to benefit from windfalls due to oil price increases. Gov't apparently intends to keep the gravy. Ecuador also says it will reward risk but seems to want to cherry pick. For instance, they might suggest "where is the risk in projects that are already proven up?" and then offer the project operator a raw deal. Ecuador does not give the impression that it understands or respects mineral exploration, or has any concerns over foreigners' perception of sovereign risk. Exploration is driven by the prospects of a windfall or at least a good portion of it to offset the extreme risk, and there needs to be enough windfall available to attract senior mining co's for takeover/development. Gov't would be foolish to ignore the hundreds of projects, thousands of jobs created and years of work that led to the one that bore fruit, then swipe the fruit. We'll see how it plays out with the advanced projects and those already in production.