RE:RE:RE:RE:Mining Analyst Kees Dekker
You can review the drill hole angles and locations for MOZ here: https://www.marathon-gold.com/corebox/ I think Dekker was just noting that he doesn't like oblique drilling as it is harder to confirm spacing of drilling when moving from exploration to feasibility when the holes are drilled at oblique angles. I can look at a 2D map of drill hole locations for vertically drilled holes and have a good idea of where the gold is on site. When you drill at oblique angles, you need to know the angles and typically develop a 3D model to interpret the results (see link above). In Dekker's mind, oblique drilling suggests that investors should do more due diligence as miner's can direct adjacent drill holes to "find" the same gold. For example, I can drill 4 holes at the compass points 40 meters from a central location. If I drill vertically, I'm getting 4 independent results. If I drill obliquely and angle all 4 holes to the middle, I'll get one set of results 4 times (all holes will intersect the central point at about the same depth, so all are reporting the same gold finding). Marathon publishes their 3D drilling model, so you can see they are not angling to the same central location, but not all developers do that. I didn't read Dekker's comments as being negative for Marathon. He simply indicated it is one of the companies that his approach requires additional due diligence on. In Marathon's case, they publish the additional information that investor's require to do the additional due diligence.