Most developer don't embark on a large ground acquisition and exploration programme to find incremental tonnes in other deposits when focussed on delivering a PFS. Sure, they are always up for exploration value-add, but the corelation of the PFS delay and desperate hunt (looked desperate to me a anyhow) for extra tonnes isn;t a mere coincidence... feels more necessity than desire imo.
Why? Well, the orebody is not so large or well behaved as the market has been told imo. That is something i was banging the drum about long time ago and, although the Main Shoot did persist to depth (even with a little fault shift in NWC favour half way down?), it remains at risk of both significant reduction in size and/or grade, and increase in orebody variability that could prove damaging to disastrous? Read the historic Antler deposit papers for a good feel on how irregular are the lodes physical variation in thickness and folding...
The PFS caught another capex increase as they do on the journey to DFS, increase in opex and shrinkage of minable tonnes, even based on the outdated MRE22. What would a DFS look like if infill drilling proved the orebody is less continuous, the tonnes lower and the mining more costly and difficult still? That would be bad right, but not so bad if they discovered meaningful economic tonnes to bolster Antlers realistic and most economic tonnes for a longer mine life to better sweat NPV and IRR out of the capex... Exploration is a duster as we guessed and Mike finally confessed, so no saviour there.
OK then, back to the mani game, Antler deposit. People in the company aren;t stupid, people those people know aren't stupid, it's an open question why the share price has been so weak and falling to levels that just don;t match with the PFS numbers... One possible explanation is concerns over where a bankable MRE actually falls, and what that means for development potential inside NWC. Today's Antler infill results look par for the course to me... both in orebody intervals and the way management choose to display their 'illustrative Long Sections'.
The drill traces are wrong for holes 128 and 132 for starters. 128 id drilled at 72.5deg dip and travelled 256m for the HW lode, not that much further in plan than hole 130 just to the south. 132 is drilled at -74.5deg and travels for 355m to the lode, about the same distance in x-axis plan view for the drill trace. Hole 132 was also the only hole drilled towards 48deg North, meaning NWC had the direction correct, unlike the other holes all drilled perpendicular or to the south of the long section and orebody strike... I placed pink dots for approx lode pierce points in plan.
Hole 132 intersected the Antler lode ~100m north than 128 and the other holes further south... it had to drilled almost 90 deg different azimuth. They all line up along strike pretty well, so there is only a modest difference in depth of lode intersection, with 132 being the deepest by ~60-80m. I have shown where ANT132 should approx plot on the LS below... approx 100m north of the other two holes 128 and 130. Not just should ANT132 be plotted in the middle of the HG Main Shoot, having drilled at such an acute angle I question just how perpendicular it intersected the HW lode, and how much thinner the true width is than the downhole width reported?
Fingers crossed on results coming from the 4 holes drilled but not yet assayed? The above is a combination of speculation based on observed behaviour and reported data, there may be another explanation? To me these results confirm the detailed analys of the variability of Antler ore lodes, as seen in the many holes plotted to the north around historic workings at depth where the original non-JORC MRE is. Actually, it fits with my expectations based on observed variability on all NWC's drilling also, outside the central main shoot at depth where it is actually very consistent and genuinely robust (ie hot pink holes and shoot interp).
Now this could be only a stop loss triggered selling crash on the disappointment of exploration results and the way Mike held them all back for so long while they seemed to leak into the share price. My concern is that NWC's concerns are more focussed on how Antler will eventually stack up after all the infill drilling is done if no other satellite deposits are found...
Time will tell as always, GLTAH
NWC Price at posting:
1.9¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)