HI @Drayno - your conclusion that it seems that the whole deposit has been misunderstood from the beginning accords with my own conclusions as well and a lot of the earlier exploration drilling and all of the sterilization drilling was ineffective. The fact that they built a mill fairly recently on the one piece of ground that may not have gold in it is simply more by good luck than any good planning. Anyway - it is there now and thanks to earlier decisions to stop mining and the subsequent Covid price inflation of constructing new mines, has put SPR in a fairly unusual position of doing exploration again under and adjacent to recently built mine infrastructure. Once they rule in or rule out what's below the existing West Winds and Four Pillars resources they should hopefully be able to settle on a revised underground development drive for resource drill-out and future haulage. The only other unknown is that if drilling shows that a significant number of tonnes is getting better and higher grade down deeper then there is the question of whether the company should look at the time and capital-intensive option of shaft haulage (or at least design the mine with that as a possible option for the future), there would be nothing worse than eventually finding out that this is another Gwalia-type orebody and not having a shaft installed. I still would like to see some more regional exploration done outside the mining lease, and even under the waste rock dumps in the mining lease, but that can happen naturally to replace resources once they start depleting them.
The forces pushing them forward are obviously investors who want to see returns, or at least a rerating to a producing asset so the gold price and availability of workforce and contractors (if there have been enough layoffs in the underground nickel mining sector to expedite underground development).
SPR Price at posting:
72.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
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