I like working with words and my interest is piqued when I find...

I like working with words and my interest is piqued when I find a word being used unexpectedly. For instance, exponential is not a word I normally see when a miner is talking about drill results, software companies yes, medtech juniors perhaps, but rock kickers, more likely arithmetic or geometric than exponential.

In Simon Lawson's recent promo/interview - the link is here (hat-tip mc3456) - twice he referred to the area between Never Never and Gilby's as having the "potential for exponential growth"; at about the 2:00 minute mark and then at about the 4:45 minute mark. That he used the same descriptive term twice to describe the same area of intersection suggests that it may have been scripted in his prompt notes for the interview. I checked Monday's "exceptional intercept" announcement and SL did not lift the term from there. In any case I assume Simon was using "exponential" in the common sense, rather than in some mathematical equation but even so, I think by using "exponential" he was flagging the potential for accelerating outcomes from that area.

What I suspect he means is that if they were to have any assay success in the zone between Never Never and Four Pillars not only would it extend NN laterally it would probably also extend FP laterally, growing the resources for both deposits with each drill success, effectively doubling the bang per assay. Anyway, that's just me playing with words.

Also, on Ora Banda which 101 and B4 chatted about in recent days, here is some comparisons I worked out between Spartan and OBM which I did not think warranted a post in itself so I will chuck it on here.

By my reckoning in the last three years Ora Banda has raised $153m in funds, including about $35m from asset sales, while Spartan has raised about $94m, with no asset sales, in that time (out of sloppiness I've not included royalty sales in that category). Effectively, Ora Banda has thrown the kitchen sink at survival while Spartan still has in reserve Yalgoo and the Gascoyne area assets. In terms of share dilution Spartan three years ago had about 251m shares on issue and now has about 965m SOI while Ora Banda three years ago had about 842m SOI while now has 1,708m with another dilution happening next month. So actually, SPR holders over that full course have been more diluted than those long term OBM shareholders. Over those three years the share performance of the two stocks were about level pegging, at just over 10% in that time, though I expect Spartan may pull away now. I mucked around with the figures so as to compare Ora Banda, which decided to keep its marginal processing operation plant running and sell off their non-core assets, with Spartan, which halted operations and for whatever reason decided to hang onto their non-core assets. My conclusion: I continue to hold SPR and not OBM.