Here's the latest ESA Sentinel satellite images. I've listed the entire series of images to ascertain the actual drilling commencement date and what I now think is the completion of the drilling so that release date/s for report/s can be estimated.
It would appear that the drilling commenced just prior to June 15 (white) (about 10 days prior to the announcement), and was completed a few days prior to June 30th. There appeared to be a break in drilling activity from the 15th to 20th June. About 6 holes (orange) were drilled between 20th and 25th June. A further 2 holes (red) were completed, most likely, around June 26th and 27th.
Sometimes the drill holes only show up faintly, or not at all, so there may have been some further holes drilled between the 26th and 30th. I've looked at the images taken on the 5th July and 10th July, and couldn't see any further activity, in particular the holes at the extreme northern and southern end of the drill collar plan, also shown below.
The original plan called up 13 holes, and I've been able to locate 9 (my interpretation only). Based on the dates and number of drill holes located, we could reach 3 conclusions:
- The drilling was completed around June 27th. There were holes drilled between the 20th and 25th June, but they don't show up in the satellite images.
- There was a delay between 20th and 25th June. This would mean that in all likelihood, the drilling was completed around June 30th / July 2nd.
- TKM decided to stop drilling at 9 holes, so the completion date was around June 27th.
So the conclusion I've reached is that the drilling has been successfully completed on time, and we should see report/s from the end of July / sometime in August. (my opinion)
I'll keep checking to see if any other holes pop up, but I think this is all we're going to see for this campaign.
Base case - no holes drilled.
Proposed drill collar plan from
report 26-6-2023
I know most of the posters on this site are savvy, so for those posters, please accept my apologies if I'm telling you how to suck eggs with the following.
Firstly, just an explanation about the release date of the report regarding the maiden drilling. The report said that "drilling has commenced." The reason I (and others) look at hard photographic data is to determine if that means, 'just commenced today', 'commenced a day ago', or 'commenced a week ago'. In TKM's case, it looks like it was about 10 days before announcement.
Secondly, drilling 200 m per day is a normal rate for RC drilling, so one hole per day is quite normal. For shallower holes, more holes per day are possible. This
website is useful.
I've put
@Tcb007 on ignore to avoid the argumentative point scoring and misinformation generated by this poster.
GLTAH.
