Ann: A$80m Fully Underwritten Equity Raising to Accelerate Explor, page-87

Reasons I'm still excited:

1) Visible gold at 1050m. This is approx. 200m below the previous deepest hole drilled (also with visible gold), which itself was about 200m beneath the existing resource. These are serious, step-out/moonshot/discovery-like holes. You just don't see holes drilled to this depth (and so far from the existing resource) too often. That's because you run the very great risk of hitting nothing at all! The dollar cost is also clearly prohibitive, so the fact that it's being done at Never Never, and successfully, speaks volumes to the quality and abundance of this orebody. I won't say NN is one in a million, but in a world where high-grade gold deposits are becoming increasingly difficult to find, NN is a rare beast indeed. The very low probability of striking gold that deep in any one hole suggests to me that the gold down there is plentiful and widely spread.

2) Appeal of Pepper. The high grade hit at Pepper, and its very close proximity (90m) to Never Never, suggest its is either an analogue or an extension of our main deposit. High-grade ounces are the name of the game - the differentiator for Spartan if you will - and the best place to search for high-grade gold is adjacent to where it has previously been found. Once more, the balance of probabilities would suggest there are more discoveries at hand.

3) The POG. This is a historic run for the gold price. I haven't seen anything like it in my 12 years following gold. It could be a once-in-a generation run. The strength of the move is one thing, but the way it recovers on any dip suggests this is much more than a short-term speculative spike. Central Banks are reportedly buying up big. There must be plenty of forward selling at these prices by the miners and precious metals traders but they are barely having an impact on the upward trend. Central banks are loathe to raise interest rates any higher (given they preempted many cuts this year), yet inflation persists. Real interest rates (inflation-adjusted) are getting lower by the minute and this is highly supportive of the POG. Add to this the geo-political situation, the crazy levels of debt and the fiscal deficits run by the U.S., and Gold's purpose as a store of value and a safe haven has never been more relevant.

4) Spartan is trending. People are beginning to take notice of us. We have appeared on Hot Copper's list of trending threads on a couple of occasions in the last week or so - that's 10,000+ views for the day! I also heard positive commentary on Spartan from a handful of fund managers and brokers on the ******# and Livewire channels.

Plenty to be excited about imho.
Good luck to all holders.