They can play around with the cut off grade to increase the tonnage, but it will decrease the % of Li2O. Management will try to use what they think is best
In this case, they didn't want to release the resource upgrade coming in lower than previously, so they must of had to lower the cut off grade to maintain the resource being 11.2mT
I guess the cut off grade is not really a big deal
In GL1's case they used a cut off for Manna of 0.6 - but that's only because if they used a lower cut off grade, the resource would have came in even bigger, but it would've been overall under 1.0% Li2O (which isn't a good look)
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Market shouldn't have been expecting a resource upgrade in terms of more tonnage, because it was pretty obvious that that wasn't going to happen from previous assays results
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If you want to make some comparisons: ESS 11.2Mt with 8.6Mt of that in indicated category RDT 12.7mT with 3.3mT of that in indicated category CXO 18.9mT with 13.3mT in Measured & Indicated category (as of July 2022) GL1 (Manna) with 32.7mT with 18.5mT of that in the indicated category
Non Aus: LRS 13.3mT with 2.08mT of that in indicated category
ESS Price at posting:
34.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Not Held