I'm back - sounds like some good debateChristmas time means busy and holidays for me so I thought the board could take care of itself for a while.
Its good to see some proper commentary from Critical1 although I think some of the work is not quite on the mark.
So I'll open up with a few points and we can go from there.
1/ PEA versus feasibility. The feasibility study is going well, although there have been some delays. This is not unusual because when you put a timeframe together you can't say "lets just put in another 3 months or more on top to account for something we can't see". What you do is is get good hard timeframes that have some conservatism and then use those for key dates. If things come out of the blue then you just have to accept that.
The fact the feasibility has been a bit dealyed is NOT why they did a PEA. The PEA was to be able to release key information to the market and to engage properly with fiannciers. AGG has not been well promoted for some years partly because previous studies were not of a high calibre. This needed to be addressed.
Also the previous 43-101 resource was not well done. It used a basic methodology and treated along strike drilling optimistically. The imapct of this was only understood when the new management came in and had the resource redone. Effectively little changed except along strike drill ozs went from M&I to inferred. This development is nothing to do with new management but instead driven by the previous report which evenyone I've talked to who knows anything says was very badly done.
Having a well done PEA at the smaller scale with the gravity means two key things:
1/ infrastructure and mining lease applications can be made. This is huge because we are likely to see the project permitted well bfore the final feasibiity is complete.
2/ proper engagement can happen with financiers and strategic investors. Again huge because you simply can talk to professionals without proper work as they need well presented techncial data to do their due diligence.
So with the PEA out the project is now able to move forward at a much better pace. Has the PEA changed the feasibiity dates - not really. Also the PEA is really a feasibiity precursor because it is using the key data going into the feasibility which is of much higher confidence than a normal PEA.
Maybe communication coud have been better, but remember the new resource couldnt be discussed until it was released and this factor was important.
GEOLOGY
The new resource is nothing to do with geology. The Kobabda system is highly weathered so geogology is not in great evidence near surface. This doesnt mean there shouldnt have been better geology in the past, but the realtiy is that geology is not a big factor in the change in resource status or calculation methodology. The key issue which has been flagged is the north south along strike drilling. The reasons for this drilling were to do with the main stockwork veins that carried grade being east west in orientation which is fine but without east west holes on a north south mineralised trend, you cant define the mineralised envelope with certainty. This is why some ozs has gone to inferred. Those ozs are still there and there is no evidence that north south drilling affected grade at all. Probably in hindsight, north south drilling was a mistake.
GRADES
In my view bulk grades will outperform the resource grade significantly. This is because you simply dont sample larger nuggets in small samples. You can see the sulphide grade is a bit higher than the oxide grade, the opposite should be true given the supergene effect, so the difference will be sampling error. In some areas where very high grades were hit, actual grades will underperform but the resource estimation methodology usually deemphasises high grade holes without continuinty so the effect of nugeget impacted holes will already be dinished in the resource anyway. So my view - overall grades to outperform significantly but yes some areas migh underperfom on a localised basis. This is no problem.
To put it is perspectve, the illegals at one point bulk mined some laterite areas - this would not be economic at 1g/t or so. It needs probably 2-3g/t. So what is the true laterite grades in those areas? 1g/t or less as per the resource? or 2-3g/t as illegals miners indicate.
Anyway gotta run, but I genrally feel more comfortable and see the story progreessing very well now but will appreciate some constructrive debate on the above.