a few clues perhaps

The following is just a bit of conjecture from reading recent detailed ANNs from MNE going back to the last quarterly.

A couple of quotes however first

From 04.10 - "Ruben Godoy, former team leader of IOCG and porphyry exploration team for BHP in Chile and Columbia, appointed as Mining Group’s Chilean in country exploration manager and now on site leading exploration programme."

04.10 - "with wallrock commonly mineralised between 0.50% and 1.00% Cu."

From 12.11 - "Within the main alteration zone chalcopyrite and pyrite content is between 1% and 10% occurring as
disseminations and veinlets associated with quartz and calcite and this zone has the potential to hold a
broader, lower grade copper halo around the main vein."

So we have the former head of porphory exploration for BHP, Ruben Godoy, now running our Chilean operations. Mr Godoy has then spent a good chunk of his life focused on porphories, the geology of porphories, what porphories look like from surface and what you need to do to find your own porphory. An interesting work history which imo is significant here.

To put it simply a porphory is a lower grade high tonnage structure usually quite deep formed from the magma core of a long dead volcanic structure. Such a structure can be imagined as an upside down cone shape with multiple branches or channels leading to the surface. The channels are often quite highly mineralised as the content of the volcano is forced to the surface by erruptions during its life.

Porhphories often have a halo of lower grade mineralisation around the main target and the branches.

El Roble, on first glance seems to be showing the early signs of a potential porphory imo. The highly detailed reports issued by MNE would appear to be offering numerous clues in this regard allowing the reader to join up the dots and form their own conclusion on the potential for such a discovery.

It is also very encouraging that the walls of the adits are demonstrating Cu grades in the 0.50% - 1.00% range, this adds further credence to the porphory idea as it is further evidence of a halo effect when compared to the much higher grades within the veins.

So we have to consider that MNE has the possibility here to mine the higher grade veins (upto 29% Cu on underground adit sampling) and then use the revenue gained from this smaller scale mining to go porphory hunting deep down under the tennement.

If that is the case then MNE has the very strong chance of becoming a largely self-funded porphory site.

As MNE is currently doing DD on the project it is sensible of them not to spell out in detail what they could be sitting on as they have only have an exclusive option at the moment and do not own the project yet.

Given that we have broker visits planned for early December I would hope for the following blue sky scenario.

* Excellent assays are returned from the current drilling showing grades at bonanza type levels.

* MNE confirms it has taken up its option to acquire the project.

* MNE confirms a plan to start a small scale mining production program of around 5000 tonnes per month.

* 5000 tonnes per month at say 6% Cu and a $7k Cu price should produce approx $2.1mn which being conservative after costs, toll treatment fees etc should be at least $1.5mn per month. So limited need for dilutionary CRs moving forward.

*The small scale mining program to start in the next quarter giving MNE EBITDA level cashflow in the same quarter.

* The revenue from this is used to map out the bigger picture and create proof of concept for a higher tonnage operation possibly / hopefully which turns out to be a porphory style deposit sitting underneath multiple high grade veins near the surface.

All of that is a lot of guesswork on my behalf and I am no geologist but I believe the clues have put in front of us.

Could someone with greater geological knowledge than I comment on my hypothesis because if I am correct then those 60c unquoted options could start looking cheap in a few months.

EB