In (geological) ignorance I would have thought that in the post 2020 drilling the Bells early Mineral Resource of 420kozs would have (very significantly?) increased and a lot of value added to Rex's bottom line bearing in mind that there have now been two years with positive results from drilling programs.
I spent some time going back to their resource statements and found this in their 2020 announcement.
Drilling Techniques The historical drill hole database at Bells is dominated by vertical RC drill holes with an average depth just over 50m. This historical drill hole database has been augmented with some recent RC drill holes completed in late 2019 by Rex. The total drill hole data used for the Mineral Resource estimate at Bells included 501 historical (pre 1992) RC drill holes in addition to the 10 RC drill holes completed by Rex in 2019.
Therefore the resource already had over 500 holes in it. It looks like the 10 extra holes were to confirm mineralisation. From my experience to actually get big increases in resource size will require a lot of holes. From what I've seen they are only putting in a few holes each season so that will confirm the understanding of the resource and maybe add a little but only adding 2% of the total holes into the resource at a time is not going move the dial for resource size. Having said that, geological confidence is important. No use claiming millions of ounces of inferred when a few drill holes confirm the geologists wildest guesses are wrong and you take millions off the following day!
RXM Price at posting:
27.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held