@RAP003 .... Thanks for your feedback, and thanks for challenging my assumptions, it makes me work harder and I genuinely appreciate these 'thought's' of mine being challenged. I'm very well aware I could be totally wrong..
" To say a company is drilling in the wrong place is crazy when all your information is sourced online vs a company that consults experts."
Where do you think the company experts get their information? It's from past experience and papers written on the topic from around the world. I've read just about everything I could find on Carbonatites and do have some background in geology. I can guarantee you ENR will be getting a range of opinions on where they should be drilling. I also consider Jon Hronsky, on the ENR board as one of the best , if not the best geologist/experts there is anywhere. That doesn't mean he is 100% correct all the time, and if you ask him you will find he is the first to admit it could be this, or that. I've had several conversations with him when he was on the board at Cassini a decade ago.
Realistically, there should be a large magnetic and gravity high associated with our mineralisation or somewhere very close. Even though Niobec's deposit is in a magnetic low, it's right next to a large magnetic high and the primary niobium mineralisation seems always associated with magnetite, being highly magnetic.
ENR has already proven they have primary niobium mineralisation in their Hoschke and Crean finds. Each would be big news if we hadn't found Luni. What they haven't found around them is a weathered or residual area of high grade mineralisation. There may not be any. In fact high grade primary niobium mineralisation may not be that rare, there are lots of occurrences around the world and up until recently not that many bothering to look*. It's the weathered or residual niobium deposits that remain after countless millions of years, that seem much rarer and certainly higher grade.
*This is similar to lithium exploration. Going back 10 years there was only a couple of hard rock lithium mines with Greenbushes being easily the largest for spodumene. Other sources were known about, but no-one bothered with them as there was no real value. That changed with lithium car and storage batteries creating a huge demand for lithium and much higher prices. Now they are finding lithium all over the world, with the big high grade deposits being the ones in demand..
With ENR I suspect there is a lot of 'suck it and see' in their drilling, hoping to learn a lot more about the overall geology of the area, while drilling both magnetic lows and highs, with the next round of drilling being more targeted depending upon results.
As @salpetie has already commented upon in the ENR threads, Luni has a 'wispy' magnetic signature, while most of ENR's drilling is concentrated on lows and highs, not in the middle of the range. He's another smart Geologist, we met at a bus stop after the Cassini AGM, and had a chat about the geology of that area at the time.
I notice he thinks nothing of the radiometrics, yet a couple of explorers are using Ternary radiometrics as signals to justify further work, looking for niobium. It would take another post to explain it, but it's my suspicion that the ENR targeting has ignored ternary radiometrics altogether. IMHO you should never dismiss any possibility, everything is just another piece of the puzzle, sometimes leading in totally the wrong direction.
In our case we have a ternary radiometrics signal over and surrounding a small lakebed, and it's probably been dismissed as irrelevant because of the potassium in the lakebed. However it's colour signature is totally different to Lake Mackay's which also has high potassium. It just happens to be near the 'head' of Sambhar and exactly where we should expect fenitization.
I also acknowledge that both companies geologists and consultants will have far more knowledge from the drill results to date and I could be completely wrong because of lack of this information.
IMHO the ENR current drilling will tell us a lot, especially around Green (closest to our ground). A bust there means the source of our mineralisation is less likely from the North and more likely from across the Endurance fault, hence why I would like us to drill there. It would be terrible getting takenover by another mob, only for them the make a large surprise extention to the ore deposit, or finding high REE or high phosphate, or perhaps even an IOCG.
We have and are proving up a great source of niobium mineralisation, but that is no reason to ignore the rest of our ground that might very well hold more value.
BTW, if the ENR drilling is a bust, the SP will fall hard over there. There is no reason why I should tell them where I would drill, or what might be something they have overlooked, when WA1 might be able to pick up their ground cheaply later on, if they find nothing of great value. Currently their ground is worthless, despite 282m of 0.54% niobium, as it will never be mined unless they can find a weathered deposit of 2%+ grade of 10-20Million tonnes. Even their drill hits of 15m-20m of 2% here and there have no meaning without our ground.
BTW, I only bought WA1 after looking at one of the ENR discovery announcements in August last year. I compared the Mcap of ENR and WA1 and quickly wondered why I was bothering with the explorer, compared to the 'finder', with not a huge difference in Mcap at the time $160m Mcap to $300m Mcap. It was chalk and cheese to me. Sorry for the long post..
WA1 Price at posting:
$17.92 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)
