On page 78 of NST’s recent Annual Strategy Day Presentation they...

On page 78 of NST’s recent Annual Strategy Day Presentation they set out the following CTP summary, they also provided four interesting site maps that highlight the large volume of past historical drilling that provides context to these points.....

Central Tanami Project Exploration

▪ Re-focus inhistorical mine corridor trends

▪ Buildresource inventory from discovery potential

▪ Groundrush

▪ Groundrush extensions

▪ Ripcord

▪ Ripcord-Groundrush Gap

▪ Jims depth extension

▪ CTP Minecorridor resource extensions

▪ Funnelback, Burnt Budgie, Long, Thrasher, Redback Southwest, Hurricane/Repulse North and Tombola

▪ Molech

▪ Cheeseman

IMO the economics of expanding these historical pits is a really sound re-start strategy. These open pits were mainly mined in the 1980s & 1990s when the Aus gold price was around $500-$600. The current gold price is now around $A2,000 higher than when these deposits were originally terminated.

It is very likely that extending and particularly deepening these pits will be profitable and relatively quick to bring into production given existing infrastructure and all sites are within granted mining licences.

Purely speculating, this extension drilling strategy could quite quickly increase the CTP resource from the current 2.75m oz to say 4m oz given there is already substantial historical drilling data for each of these deposits plus being able to utilise a much lower cut-off grade due to the much higher POG.

From my reading of the last few CTP updates, I think NST has pretty well confirmed it’s strategy to initially fully exploit the majority of existing open pit opportunities before investigating the deeper underground (Callie type) potential.

Its been a long wait but NST now looks to be serious about focusing on the CTP’s proven high potential corridor. IMO NST could soon be confident enough given the size if the existing resource, lower cut-off grade and the high probability of future resource expansion, to commence plant refurbishment which would potentially take between 6-12 months.

I think its important to remember that NST had previously included the CTP within its Production Plan from FY18 when the Aus gold price was $900 lower! At current gold prices and the potential leverage effect reinstatement would have on its share price, they must be tempted.

DYOR