Important to know the difference between reserve and a...

Important to know the difference between reserve and a resource.

A resource is an ore body with a lower threshold in terms of estimating cost of extraction.

To be a reserve reuqires a lot more rigour, and key 'is economical to mine at price x' . Regis has a cut off of 1600/oz (i presume this is aud price, but if someone can clarify as i couldn't see it covered in the report). The implication being that if they were to use a higer price for gold say 2200/oz. A lot of the resource and lower grades would now be profitable so you could expect the reserve to increase.

Companies are known for doing that whereby they change their reserve assumption and boom, more reserves. Regis hasnt cashed this chip yet.

Even excluding mcphillamys, they have 2M reserves, and 7.5M resources. Plus their promising exploration highlighted here. A 'we have redone our reserve assumptions based on a price of 2200 aud, would likely convert a significant portion of the resource to reserve status.

Edited to add, it is a fair amount of study work/engineering to improve their resources to reserves. Can't just be done at the stroke of a pen.