WebcastNot sure if anyone else watched the webast, but I did, and here's my take on it.
Firstly, only a little time was spent talking about Bass river. Chris basically said that the drill results were not as amazing as hoped for, and was quite open and honest about that, which I liked. He also explained the new anomaly that was found nearby (think it's to the Northwest, about 800m away). Apparently this new anomaly is 'an order of magnitude larger' than the one the recently drilled, and management is really keen to drill it. However, they are still busy renegotiating things with Cogonov. No specifics were given regarding when that might be expected to be resolved, but I did get the impression that it will happen and that management was very excited to drill the new anomaly. Two other points I found interesting is that this other anomaly was found completely by accident - the flyover was only done because the planes and equipment had to go to a nearby location and were available cheaply, and Chris decided what the hell. Secondly, it seems that the results so far lean more towards enforcing a VMS style deposit than an IOCG one.
Approximately 90% of the webcast was taken up by Shawn Ryan. He talked a lot about the new technology he's developed, as well as about the Yukon in general and then of course the Ballarat property. Now, this is just my personal impression and I'm not trying to pump anything, just relay info to those who don't have the time to listen to the whole thing, but I really like this guy and he had me mesmerized from the first word (even though it was 3am here in Taiwan when I watched). Obviously people were spot on when they told me he's a great promoter, but actually what I really liked is the feeling of listening to someone who is a genuine expert. Now, I know absolutely NOTHING about geology, and yet this guy made all the advanced technology and science easily understandable. That is often one of my gripes with exploration companies - no one can understand a damn word of their news releases. With Shawn on the team it seems that will change.
Basically the technology he's developed is intended to aid data capture in the field. They use drones to do very detailed aerial suveys - much more detailed than was possible before. Then they use this info to make detailed 3D topogrophical maps of the terrain. Then there are 3 other specifically designed vehicles that go over the terrain to capture more data. I can't tell you exactly what the second one does, but it's something like magnetic resonance scanning. This is then added to the 3D map. The next two vehicles, if I understand it correctly, do very shallow and cheap drilling in selected locations (one can go deeper than the other), which then gives more information that can aid the eventual diamond drill location selection.
There are three important features here. One is that it is much cheaper (much less human labor invovled), second that the data capture happens much faster, and third that it can practically be done year round in the Yukon. Shawn did say that it's better NOT to do it when the ground is frosted, but technically it can be done year round. Obviously all of these are of great for Stakeholder, but the one that really stood out for me was point two. Shawn explained that data is captured and decisions about drilling made in real time. The machines do their thing at night, and the GEO can review it early in the morning and decide if either of the shallow drilling machines need to 'investigate' any of the points covered during the night in more detail. That's pretty awesome.
Now, about Ballarat, Shawn was careful to shy away from making any concrete predictions about how many ounces the property might hold, but this actually made me like him and believe him more. What he did say though is that is truly a 'needle in a haystack' type scenario, where if you drill even in the perfect location but simply at the wrong angle you might miss the gold bearing veins. Which reinforces the need for geting as much accurate data as possible. It's clear that he's very excited about the property, and he stated a few times that it was originally one of the first ones he started working on and the one he liked the most. Also, that it's strategically located between Underworld and Kaminak, and shares many of the same features. He also talked about the creeks running from those mountains and how they've always been known to bear gold. He spent a long time going over the data that had already previously been collected on this property, and showed the new data he's collected overlaid on those, which immediately shows that the previous holes that were drilled missed the important targets.
I asked a question at the end of the webcast regarding timeframe, and he gave some more specifics on what they intend to do on the property and when. Unfortunately I didn't write anything down, but the general idea was that they will start work as soon as the ground is ready (around June), and that they should be ready to do diamond drilling around August. If anyone else watched, please feel free to add more here, or tell me if I remember it wrong.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, but don't expect me to explain the tehnical side of anything!
Chris