Post by
ybacuo on May 13, 2021 11:20am
Expectations
How good will the assays be?
Rock grab samples are selectively chipped to highlight elements of interest and may therefore not be representative of the bulk concentrations. The down-hole visible gold may be a sign of good things to come, but remember from the March 25, 2021 news release that:
“Prior to ALX’s 2021 work, only 16 diamond drill holes have been drilled since 1995 to depths averaging less than 86 metres”.
“In 1995, Uranerz Exploration and Mining (“UEM”) drilled four holes at 100-metre intervals along the Broken Hammer Shear Zone. The best intersection was 7.31 g/t gold (0.23 oz/ton) over 1.5 metres in hole AL02, from 38.9 metres to 40.4 metres, beneath the site where visible gold was discovered in the late 1980s (Avery and Leppin, 1995)”.
Why is it taking so long for the samples to be processed?
Samples must be labeled, dried, crushed, riffle split, pulverised and sieved before either being dissolved in various acid solutions and run through to the ICP/MS machines or fire assayed for quantitative precious metals. The lab sample prep workers are relatively poorly paid and it is hard for the labs to attract and retain them. Further adding to this are labour and supply chain disruptions that have occurred due to COVID.
Also, given that there is visible gold in the drill core, multiple aliquots will need to be run for each sample reject in order to reduce the nugget effect.
Will ALX be acquired by a larger player?
Anything is possible, however FCU and NXE have two of the best undeveloped U deposits in the Athabasca basin and neither has yet been acquired by the worlds big U companies. Part of this is due to foreign ownership limits and part due to a low U price. ALX is not just a U company anymore, but this Au property is not exactly green-field and the deeper exploration is still in its early stages. Regular dilution through private placements is a more likely scenario.
What should we look for?
Large trade volumes associated with leaky information pipelines and proxy traders often precede significant price moves.
Having tempered my expectations, I suspect that the assay results will be nice.
YBaCuO