Thanks
@doodledog, my wife and I had a great time on the Gold Coast at this year's 16
th RRS conference. The food was great, the company better. I'll cover our trip over two posts - firstly our chat with SW and NS, and the second post I'll do a summary of SW's presentation.
One thing of note, and this was expressed by several speakers, is that the lack of interest in the junior minerals sector is not isolated to a particular company or mineral, but more so across all commodities. One of the main "distractions" comes from medical cannabis.
We had quiet a lengthy chat with Steven and Nick on the Tuesday, and I can tell you that those guys are every much as professional, passionate and highly motivated as you would hope for. They clearly come across as as part of a team, committed to delivering the maximum benefit for all stakeholders from both the Lulo and Mothae projects.
I will add that they do listen to shareholders, and are prepared to act on any reasonable suggestion/ concern. I mentioned that, as Aussie investors, we prefer more detailed information in ASX announcements. I used the example of the much anticipated TDEM survey some years back where they not only gave us a small section of the survey, but it was way upstream of the Cacuilo valley. They both looked at each other, then at me with the expression of ....
are you sure? so I said
"trust me, it's never been published". SW indicated that he will review what's included in future announcements, with the view to including additional information/ maps. We did get three diagrams in Thursday's announcement, so hopefully, together with feedback from the AGM, he's already taken that suggestion onboard.
I'm not going to say that they committed themselves to any certainty that the alluvial source(s) at Lulo is/ are on the concession, however they spoke of all the information gathered from the alluvial operation, which alluded to the fact that the source(s) is/ are nearby. They also mentioned that tests, conducted on our two largest stones at Lulo (404ct and 227ct), suggests that they may have come from two different sources. They have no way of confirming this, but are keeping an open mind of the multiple source theory.
I asked Nick if any investigation was conducted on the L6 target, generated from the original site visit to Lulo by Manfred Marx:
Nov 2008 Quarterly P3 & 42010 AGM preso P11What is confusing is that, at the time, there were two targets, K6 and L6. Over the passage of time, K6 (located close to concession border) was changed to L6, and the original L6 target (located close to the Cacuilo River) disappeared off the radar. Nick took my phone number and assured me that his team will investigate that target and he'll get back to me. When we revisited Lucapa's booth on the Wednesday, Nick had already contacted Bagot Road to commence the investigation.
I asked Nick if the current bulk sampling program is devoted to tributaries directly feeding into mb6 and 8, and he said no, they will also be bulk sampling upstream of mb28, but couldn't elaborate as an announcement on that is pending. He did confirm that tributaries feeding pipes like L48, are included in the current program. I also asked about L71 and L72, located at the headwaters of the Canguige River which, during the colonial days, produced recoveries of +20cpht. He assured me that they had that covered too, and I received confirmation in Thursday's announcement which I'll devote a post to later this week.
What I found interesting was that they had a replica of the 1,109 carat Lesedi La Rona diamond at their booth. Lucara Diamond Corp, as we know, is also a producer of large high value stones, so it looks like they keep the communication channels open with our 'competitor'.
Another interesting point is that SW mentioned that he regularly visits the Angolan capital, Luanda, and keeps updated with the policy changes in the minerals sector. It would be nice to get a bigger slice of the kimberlite right now, but at the same time we are still locked in to other favorable gazetted conditions. It's a fine line, and one that SW knows how to tread.
Btw, we were offered to explore the neighboring Cacuilo concession however Lucapa did not accept it as we have too much on our plate. We have 75% of the Cacuilo valley and all the tributaries feeding into the Cacuilo River yet explore/ mine. After that, we still have the Lulo River and all its tributaries - "we're going to be there for a very, very long time".
Cheers
(20min delay)