Ann: Araxa High-Grade Niobium Project - Update, page-73

The company's geotechical reports will dictate how close they can mine to the toe of the dam and likely be governed by a seismic fully saturated scenario

As an example if you offset the toe of the tailings dam by 50m (red area below) it appears opening the resource at depth and to the east may not be as straightforward as you might hope. The tailings dam effectively sterilises some of the nice grade x width hits in the company's plan (pink dots below). That's fine - as long as people are made aware of it - which they have been now.

There may be other options to stabilise the dam or methods to mine closer than 50m - it's all about the geotech and also what is considerd an acceptable risk profile - and this will likely take into account such things like regulator's requirements, the lifespan of the mine pit, and whether it will ultimately be backfilled etc. Most things are possible with enough $$$$

The previous owners I believe worked up a resource estimate with a pit offset, if so it must've excluded some of the mineralisation to the east and focused on the central portion.

If you want to get the tonnages up, in my eyes, the success of this as an exploration project will largely be dictated, among other things, by exploration success to the west and north away from the dam, which I await before I purchase. Also $20M of stock at 2.5c still to come, so could take some time to digest

In my other post with some sections I highlighted some nice shallow grades further north which I am keen to hear more about.

50m offset, for example:

A rough (probably inaccurace) section here which would show where a 50m offset would sit on section A-A (E-W), so although technically the deposit is open to the east as shown, practically, that may be a different story.

Grades are high and it's a nice looking deposit, just needs further continuation to the N and W for me to get seriously interested