I'm not in a position to make that assessment. At least locally the grades appear to be quite solid and shallow in the M5 starter pit but the only way I'd even have any way of starting to account for an average grade based on the information provided in announcements would be to take all the coloured ore blocks in the sections that have been presented and try and do some averaging on them based on the upper and lower grade ranges depicted for each ore block on each section to try and get some sort of upper and lower bound for the average ore grade of the grade controlled ore in the stage 1 pit. Once again it shouldn't be up to me as an investor to have to try and do this or go to that level of detail. If the grade control drilling is reconciling above MRE then its up to the company with all its fancy statistical modelling tools to tell me that. To be honest I haven't read the recent announcements carefully enough to know if they have said this or not but before the grade control results came out I was trying to start some discussion on this very topic (with no success) in this post here which references the recently published Canadian technical report.
https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/broke-data.4749040/page-41?post_id=38990599#.XRQsDco_WhA
With respect to M5 the report amongst many other things said
" Mineralisation at M5 largely lies within a broad, steeply dipping low grade shear zone corridor that can be traced over a strike length of 3,000m (Figure 1.8). The overall strike direction of the shear zone is approximately 035° and is sub vertical to steeply west dipping. Distinctive higher grade hanging wall and footwall lodes can be identified within this broader lower grade halo.
Mineralised domains were constructed on approximately 50m spaced cross sections orientated perpendicular to drilling using a nominal 0.3g/t Au edge cutoff for overall shear zone mineralisation. Good continuity of the mineralised envelopes was observed at the scale of the sectional spacing with moderate grade variability, typical for deposits of this type.
Three main mineralisation estimation domains (Zones 100, 200, 300) were defined, with a fourth domain (Zone 400), to the south. Zone 102 is a minor sub-domain located adjacent to and in the hangingwall of Zone 100. Zone 301 is a minor domain located in the footwall of Zone 300.
After consideration of relevant factors relating to geological setting and mining, including likely mining selectivity and bench/flitch height, a regular 3m run length (downhole) composite was selected as the most appropriate composite interval to equalise the sample support at M5. In the case of M1 and M3, a 2m downhole length was determined to be more appropriate.
The composites were used for subsequent statistical, geostatistical and grade estimation investigations. The grade distributions are typical for gold deposits of this style and show a positive skew or near lognormal behaviour. The coefficient of variation is moderate to high, consistent with the presence of high grade outliers that potentially require cutting (capping) for grade estimation.
Visual inspection of the available datasets for each of the estimation domains indicated some clustering of the data within higher grade regions of the deposit. Data clustering often occurs when drilling campaigns selectively target higher grade regions of the deposit, resulting in an artificially high mean grade in many cases. Declustering was completed to remove any effects of preferential sampling of high grade areas that may have occurred."
I suppose the main takeaway for M5 is that the high grade occurs on the foot and hanging walls of the deposit within a broader lower grade halo and that the deposit is highly variable in grade and is subject to clustering.
What the recent grade control drilling says about the MRE model or average grade of the whole deposit is hard to say IMO. It appears positive but I'm not going to make assumptions. Let the company tell us if the average grade is being lifted, it could be that the apparent higher grades we are seeing with the grade control drilling are just a consequence of the drilling targeting the oxidised portion of the higher grade hanging wall, but how much of the lower grade halo of the deposit actually accounts for the bulk of the ounces in the M5 deposit (more research required) so what does this grade control really say about the overall LOM plan?
Frankly I have lost trust in all these companies for the time being so continue on in blind hope until I've fully exited this basket case of a gold sector. Esh
(20min delay)