rc vs native copper, page-14

Charlie,

You were doing well for the first few points, but then you got off the rails significantly. I would like to correct some glaringly incorrect factual mistakes in your post.

As you correctly stated the second round of bulk metallurgical testwork should return metal recoveries in line with the first test, if not better; that is what iterative improvement in the plant design is all about.

There is no difference between the bulk sample data and the geological resource because the area sampled by the met test drilling is a small subset of the bulk geological result. Remember that in the 1.7% copper equivalent (0.94% real copper) zone there is 30Mt of material; within this there is a smaller subset of 4% material, and it is this small subset which has been sampled for the native copper testwork.

You state "I think people can now realise that with further drilling you can alway improve the jorc grade, but testwork will always be a consistent measure of ore grade that ends up going through the mill."

This flies in the face of the facts. MA's 272Mt resource contains significantly less copper than the previous hellman & Schofield resource, at a higher cut-off grade, after more drilling was included. This means that they have drilled more holes and got less copper. The only added value is in the by-products.

Your argument is that the native copper has been under-reported and that more drilling will always increase this grade to the level of the 4% Cu in the native copper circuit. This flies in the face of the evidence that the latest resource estimate includes less copper from more drilling. Explain how this works?

There is no bulk sample resource. In fact, the company has yet again refused to delineate the proportions of oxide, transitional and fresh material contained within the resource categories at the various cutoffs. How much of the 30Mt is oxide or transitional material containing native copper? One third?