I agree with most of what you say, but a couple of things - I...

I agree with most of what you say, but a couple of things - I think you discount the amazing benefit of having a decent "at surface" resource.

Brent gives a brief example in his preso, something along the lines of "once upon a time, a 1g/t Au, at surface deposit was economic - now those at surface deposits just don't exist anymore and that 1-2g/t Au find at 150m depth just isn't economic".

Having MdP, Loma Bonita, MdPN and hopefully a ubnch of other areas of at surface mineralisation is actually a huge, huge thing. It means the cheapest of the cheap to produce. It means the project is essentially de-risked, because we don't need a huge volume (even though it already looks of decent size) to make things worthwhile.

As for the geological expertise, I think I know what he's talking about. He's saying that whilst you can probably use geological expertise to weed out about 1/3 to 1/2 the exploration companies which are essentially just lifestyle companies with no real no how, the remaining companies have "decent enough" teams that are all capable of making a decent find.

Then it really does come down to numbers game, as you often point out - numbers of drill holes in the ground, numbers of targets tested etc. There's a lot of luck in the exploration game. Having a decent team just means you increase those odds a little bit.

Think SIR (and Mr Creasey) before they discovered Nova - that was literally their last drill hole in the area, and they had peppered the geophysical anomoly and come up largely empty handed.

Also take the MdP find - that was essentially an accident by the looks of things - they were initially drilling to see what was below the vuggy siliceous cap rock and found that it was the cap rock itself that was actually mineralised.

I actually think the most important thing of all is having the right ground. There's a lot of money absolutely wasted in exploration by companies who just want to keep the flow of share holders money coming in. I'd take a company with average geologists and a great piece of land over the reverse any day.

I think that's where AZS management really nailed it, as this really is a top notch piece of real-estate.