i have client interested in investing in so4 because of the 9...

i have client interested in investing in so4 because of the 9 lake scenario, so they asked me to investigate the reality of the idea. the result isn't pretty.

as a first port of call, and to sort through the technical details early, i looked at the grade of the 9 lakes as presented in their geologic target announcement of 28/03/2018. to get an idea of the sort of grades that are economic i looked to local bfs/dfs statements, apc res grade 3.3g/l k, kll res grade 5.5g/l k, scoping docs by amn 3.6 g/l k, and rwd 5.0 g/l k. for some international comparison i threw in crystal peak' sevier lake in utah 2.2 g/l k. so in wa the lowest grade dfs level res is apc with 3.3 g/l k with 2.2 g/l k in the usa with many advantages there. against this back drop how did so4's 9 lakes compare?
the 4 red crosses had grades that simply did not come close to 2.2 g/l k so i discounted them as simply too low grade. the 3 question marks are close to the 2.2g/l of crystal peak so if grade is the only factor then they might make it. lakes wells and way were the only two that cut the mustard as far as grade is concerned.

yes i understand that grade is not the be-all-and-end-all of mining projects, but as a starting point it is as good as any.

something else jump out at me reading through the 28 march announcement, grades reported for drilling at lake way that did not make it into the recent bfs resource/reserve - this strikes me as very odd. in fact it is worse than odd because the reported grades are all lower than the res statement so it looks like they were omitted as they would have lowered the grade of the whole operation. see for yourself.


the two rows highlighted in green are the only two holes noted in the bfs/res ann - and lookie 6 g/l k. not only are the grades missing from the bfs/res ann, so are the holes and reference.

i don't understand the reasons for omitting drilling data from a resource estimation, but i don't like it, it smells off to me.

if other readers have some insight that i have over looked i am happy to hear their views.