I am surprised that no one has made a comment about the maiden reserve as SL gave some big hints in the presentation. A key aspect of the reserve size will be how much of the NN indicated resource will be converted to a reserve which will be based on the June 2024 MRE.
While we do not yet have a reserve, with more work underway from SPR before a maiden reserve is released, does my analysis below stack up and possibly provide the context for SL's statement yesterday that the reserve is
"going to blow people away". Will we see up to 95% of the indicated MRE at NN or about 1.035m Oz be in the reserve?. And if that eventuates does it imply the reserve for both Pepper and NN, once they drill out NN and extend and drill out Pepper to indicated status may end up being 2m Oz+?
If the eventual reserve is of this order, then the SP will likely go a lot higher. But maybe I am so stupid my analysis is way off reality.
As in past presentations, yesterday SL again spoke about the wide stopes making comments like:
-at 6.40 mins "the one thing I really want to drive home on this - this is
not a 5m-7m wide orebody as a good grade. This is
a 30m wide orebody average at a
really good grade. Those geometries really make a cost exercise on extracting ounces a very simple process"
- at 8.15mins he stated "almost 4,000g/m at the centre of the system.. when you think that these
stopes being 20-30m wide, that is a crazy orebody."
Then at 12.50 mins he stated about the maiden reserve:
"we want to put out a reserve in the second half of this year - we are absolutely going to do that and I think it is
going to blow people away"
That is a very positive statement. Currently NN has an indicated resource of almost 1.1m Oz.
There is a table in the MRE announcement on page 35/36 that sets out sensitivity analysis (see images below) and it has not appeared in previous MRE upgrades. They used Mineable Shape Optimiser (MSO) - quotes from the link below on MSO (
https://docs.dataminesoftware.com/StudioRM/Latest/MSO/MSOv3_default.htm):
"
MSO is used to generate the optimal size, shape and location of stopes for underground mine design using an input of block model grades or values."
"MSO computes the optimal size, shape and location of stopes for an underground mine using an input block model which contains grades or values."
Two key interpretations of the results I have made from the images below are:
1. they state 95% of the UG MRE of 1.876m Oz (includes inferred and Pepper) is within the MSO - I interpret this to imply that 1.782m Oz of the MRE (ie 95% of 1.876) can be mined within defined stopes from their modelling.
2. with a cut-off grade of 1.2g/t (MRE cut-off is 2.0g/t) the stopes that they defined are able to produce 1.96m Oz, greater than the MRE but at a grade of 6.2g/t which while much lower than MRE grade is still very good (and greater than BGL's 5 g/t). MoM focused on the table on page 36 and believe the grade of the mineable ounces (which I interpret to be the reserve) will be between 6.2 and 8.65g/t.
This is also from the link above and suggests further work is needed before a reserve is estimated:
"
Datamine’s Mineable Reserves Optimizer (MRO) computes an envelope by floating a minimum stope shape within the input resource model. MRO is entirely suitable for preliminary reserve estimation but does not optimize the detailed final location of stopes and pillars, allowing for mining dilution. "
I note from presentation the reserve is being based on the June 2024 MRE and is based on a PFS - this is the statement from the presentation:.
"Maiden UG Ore Reserve – based on June 2024 MRE - second half 2024
Maiden UG Ore Reserve – underpinned by pre-feasibility level studies"
I wonder if we will see a PFS when they release the reserve later this year (this happened with BGL's maiden reserve)?
