Ann: Lake Goongarrie Nickel Sulphide Drilling Completed, page-62

Initially it was both due to Covid.

My mate tells me now it's to do with the rig itself.
When Ed says it's a brand new rig in essence it essentially is.
It's had larger than standard size tracks fitted to it enabling greater access to areas across the lake it would not be able to reach with a smaller size track.
The larger the track footprint the more you can spread the load of the rig and the further you can venture into the boggier areas of the lake.
I believe the drill head and all the hydraulics have been upgraded also, so less likely to have any mechanical issues once we do start drilling.

Also this drill rig is now contracted to KWR for as long as we need it, so as frustrating as the delays have been it ultimately may prove to be more beneficial in the long run having a purpose built, modified and upgraded rig for an extended period of time however long that needs to last.

Remind yourself we will soon be venturing where no man nor machine has ever ventured before, drilling deeper than anyone has ever been able to on the lake, unlocking the geology and hopefully with that the riches that have taken some 2.5B+ years to form.

Exciting times.
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"Comments on the timing of lode-gold mineralisation. Most lode-gold deposits in the Yilgarn Craton are structurally controlled and related to metamorphic and/or felsic magmatic fluids.
The currently popular continuum model (Groves 1993: Mineralium Deposita, 28, 366
374) places the formation of most lode-gold deposits late in the tectonothermal history at
2640 - 2630 Ma. However, Witt (1997: in AGSO Record 1997/41, 151156) presented evidence for gold mineralisation other than that readily explained by the continuum model. Indeed, each of the D1-D3 events could have favoured gold mineralisation.
Both heat and fluids for gold mineralisation would have been available when the
pre- to syn-D1 granites and their comagmatic felsic volcanics were emplaced. The recently
discovered gold deposit at Kanowna Belle, near Kalgoorlie, apparently reflects porphyry related mineralisation (Ren & Heithersay 1997: Proceedings of the 9th IAGOD
Symposium, Beijing, E. Schweizerbartsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart, 116);
perhaps more are yet to be discovered."

https://www.ga.gov.au/pdf/Corp0070.pdf