Some of the blind bulls out there might not be happy with me!
While some here are very excited!! To me, it’s just OK!! It certainly is not earth-shattering … What its doing is confirming they have uranium mineralization at Garnet Valley. The reality is, everyone knows that already - Namibia is filled with uranium, (hence my interest in Namibian U plays). DYL, WME have both just announced very good results – high grade & shallow. But now the market wants more than confirmation, hence IMO we saw no run on the SP today.
Also IMO, forget Uis, Rossing South, and Hildenhof ….. I say that mainly because, while they are very good prospectivity-wise, they are at very early stage of exploration & wont play a part in EXT’s share price over the short-med term … unless they announce something stupendous!.
EXT have to concentrate on Ida Dome & get the JORC & Scoping Study out … then the market can start to get a true idea of just how feasible Ida Dome is. For me, the jury is very much still out.
The Ida Dome project is actually 4 distinct deposits: Garnet Valley, Hollands Dome, Ida Central, Ida East. So while they might end up delineating a sizeable deposit, its divided up into 4 areas, they will have to develop four open pits, four declines etc.etc., each with its own set of unique issues.
Lets take today’s announcement … some are very excited by it, but throwing it into a spreadsheet this is what it equates to.
Summing that up: The depth of the mineralization varies … in some areas at surface, some middle, others deeper. The depth of the deepest hole is 106m, so to get it all out, at this stage, they will need to make an open pit to that depth .. for the sake of expediency I have rounded it out to 100m.
Now the average intersection per hole is 19m @ an of 255ppm of U. The average overburden & waste is therefore 81m with a strip ratio of 4.4 : 1
For only 19m of mineralization @ 255ppm, that is way, way too much waste …. Not economical!
So this drilling update has done nothing for me … it proves they have uranium … but that’s something the historical drills showed anyway.
So what are the positives for EXT holders? 1] These are early days … they are the FIRST drill results in Garnet Valley since the ‘70’s 2] They say this was intended to define the foot wall position only, and that they expect better results from drilling in the hanging wall positions. 3] These are the RC drilling results .. Deeper drilling by diamond drill results beneath these alaskites are still pending and according to the report contain visual evidence of “numerous zones of uranium mineralized Alaskite.
To me, management have obviously included the last three points in the announcement to reassure current stock holders and future holders in Canada, because they know that these results in isolation are not enough.
So that is my view … the announcement has given me no new information other than there is more to come, which will need to be much better to make it a viable open pit at those grades. For me it is still a “stand & watch from the sidelines” proposition. The event I await with more interest is the TSX listing. This could well trigger some nice technical trading opportunities.
Hope that informs, & doesn’t anger of depress the faithful
cheers
EXT Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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