The new Decline Regarding Banana Creek, I believe they pulled that rig only because of the rainy season starting. (9 0f next ten days are forecast rain) This is mountainous terrain on a narrow newly built service road and I would guess they wanted to make sure the rig didn’t get marooned up there. Two holes doesn’t make a drilling campaign and they will be back asap.
The gold in the caldera is high grade in narrow veins with very little halo effect so you can miss a major vein by inches. Stephen Mann, (the former head Geologist) told me once that he was surprised that they hit that great high grade down deep that quickly because it could have been easily missed.
QH said that at Porgera it took a very long time and much effort to find the deep high grade source gold. (I wouldn’t be surprised if one day miners down 900 meters or so at Tuvatu will look at an old drill location, shake their heads and say, ‘boy , they missed this jewel box by only 6 inches!)
Tuvatu on the other hand was and is a golden opportunity to explore by mining. (like they’ve been doing at Vatakoula for 80 years and in other similar situations around the world)
Emperor concluded 21 years ago that they could make a profit at Tuvatu when gold was an inflation adjusted price 1/5th of what it is now and thought they could produce 80K oz per year. It likely wasn’t until they mined the decline which runs through the major lodes that they made that decision. (rather than just their good drilling results.) I’m sure they discovered much more than they expected when they actually started mining into the rock.
As has been said, the lodes are planes: sort of like sheets of plywood in the ground. (with gaps and spaces between the veins and stockwork, of course). With underground mining LION can follow the lodes and veins wherever they lead. Many are open vertically and each way horizontally. Imagine what we will find running a 14.5 foot square decline down under and off of that, the 10.5 ft square drifts into the lodes. Plus the deeper we mine the easier it will be to drill even deeper and splay both vertical and horizontal drill holes.
(I wanted to refer people to that great 3d mapping program on the website that showed the planes of the lodes so well but it appears that they got rid of it instead of making it more explanatory and useful. It’s a definite loss of a great tool. Penny wise and pound foolish imo)
Apparently our explosives magazine has been built and stocked. (I say that tentatively because I was told years ago it was being built and it wasn’t so I’m a little gun-shy) (We were getting our explosives the long way around from Vatukoula).
Also one of our shorter drills is allegedly drilling geotech holes for further mill/crusher site construction and another is doing the same at the area that will be the new portal of the new decline.