Your posts have been very helpful to me on another stock ... so to return the favour [as best as I can] this is the understanding I have of Halls Peak
You need to revisit the SOC website and do an internal search "Halls Peak" ... in that you should find [among other things] the graphic posted below. [They updated the website earlier this year and cut out a whole lot of useful stuff showing the VTEM images of the conductor]
The area concerned is about 14sq k's. Small, mostly near surface mining was conducted in the 1970's in a rough circle around what is now known to be an underlying conductor [first detected in 2012]. The basic story is all of those near surface mines are situated on faults ... which leads to the natural speculation the underlying conductor feeds the whole system.
In the 70's, several of the majors had bits and pieces of the area but no-one had a sizable chunk ... result?... they all abandoned the area. Subsequently the numerous small tenements were aggregated and SOC [and formerly PMR] are the first companies to control the site in its entirety. To get an understanding of the possible scale have a look at MCT's prospect in WA. Their prospect is [from memory] 84mill tons @ ~1000m's deep..... if Halls Peak checks out it should come in around 200mill tons @ 500m's deep.
This current drill plan is a total waste of money regards advancing the understanding of the site. The only possible pay-off they might get is they find enough additional extension of the near surface high grade to justify a small boutique mining operation [similar to what happened in the 70's]. [If the current management thinks that is going to spark a SP rally they are dreaming]
The conductor is contained in 2 tenements and is mostly controlled by SOC but there is an existing JV with a Chinese govt controlled outfit [SUGEC] which will have earned some percentage on the adjacent tenement which hosts [maybe] 30% of the conductor .... so not straight forward even if they find the thing. Also there are some significant legacy issues around lead contamination by the majors in the 70's and there is a citizen group in the area who are likely to become active again ...their concerns are valid and it will be a hurdle to restarting any surface operation. However, if [one day] somebody ever does test the conductor and discovers it is mineralized the surface deposits will probably never be mined and it would go straight to an underground operation [similar to the MCT proposals] and the environmental concerns would never become an issue.
SOC Price at posting:
0.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
