I'm not impressed, in fact this drilling is killing the upside imho. Historical drilling and MRE's all centred around the 'Main Fault' to depth of oxidation, where weathering shrinkage of the collapse breccia associated with Main Fault enriched the REO grades. REE has undertaken to see what mineralisation looks like in primary rock at depth... including grade, thickness and critically continuity.
Drilling so far indicates that the Main Fault is patchy along strike with a couple of thicker, high grade 'shoots' of breccia/stacked veins within those shoots. Best shoot identified to date is the section targeting first hole of this years program (obviously), and logging/XRF indicates the Main Fault and associated peripheral breccias continue sub-vertically down this shoot at depth. Great, except there is no evidence yet that the peripheral breccias are continuous lodes that can be defined and mined in underground stopes over any distance. Breccia s with REO enrichment are not much good if they come and go randomly around the main Fault structural control.
Hole 20 Section shows my interp. Assays to come from CDX0020, but history has shown that releases of 'logged mineralisation' don't always report as significant REO grade/widths from the lab. History shows that outside the Main Fault, continuity of good grade/width REO (ie potentially economic) is discontinuous. In short, the breccia and lodes either side of Main Fault even in the best mineralised shoots is patchy and presents a real problem trying to define and mine in any underground mine. patchy breccia can much more easily be pciked up level by level from grade control drilling inside an open pit. Time will tell if Hole 20 goes the same way with patchy good REO garde/width that may but probably does not line up with patchy ore higher up?
Long section shows the problem chasing tonnes in a large open pit at depth. If the best Cummins has to offer at depth is a few relatively short strike HG shoots then where is the tonnage coming from. Most importantly, where are continuous breccia lodes coming from that can add under ground mineable tonnes, not just random stockwork tonnes?
CDX0021 was plotted higher up than end of hole (I adjusted down on LS) and as you can see form the collar table these next 2 holes are not shallow by any means. Not shallow and frankly damned by faint praise given JR usually throws the thesaurus at anything looks good enough to talk up. Much more drilling to come, but for mine the carbonatite is behaving as such breccias usually do... breaking up into discontinuous stcokwrokds and lodes outside major structural fault controlled lodes (eg Main Fault Lode).
