Ann: Trading Halt, page-52

Current focus of drilling seems to be: upgrading RPM resources to M&I, to be sufficient for PFS.

So a worthy goal towards progressing the project. It's progress no matter the scenario (the only scenario where this is not progress, is if wanting to ignore RPM, to focus purely on Korbel?). I expect management see production from RPM+Korbel as more realistic than Korbel only.


What would a major be willing to pay for a bunch of uncertain inferred resources, vs what would they be willing to pay for a bunch of M&I resources with associated confidence from a strong PFS?

They're not just focused on growing millions of oz of inferred. If that was the goal, they could look for more Cathedrals (big numbers, but not very useful resources as it currently stands - 2Moz for the headline number, but irrelevant to SS2).

50Moz goal sounds more like, funding district wide exploration down the track, using profits from production. 9.9Moz is enough to get to production (4-5Moz of that being applicable, if heap leach proves viable for the lower grade ore). But production requires M&I (while the 9.9Moz includes a lot of inferred, and some resources that may be uneconomic like Cathedral, and the half of South that is under a mountain). Who would be willing to pay up for a plant based on SS2? No banks would. Doubtful shareholders could cough up enough. Even big miners are unlikely to go for it - they do the usual PFS/BFS for their own projects too.

But in the shorter term (re: adding inferred ounces), they're exploring Train area. It has potential to add some inferred ounces - I'd not complain if we found some. But it's a useful/leveraged place to find any - near to the prospective RPM plant, and I'd rather we test it now, rather than wait until BFS stage, before even knowing the basics of what we have and having years wait to define it.

RPM area could also add some more inferred, but would anybody complain about that? It's as leveraged as it gets. RPM has potential to improve/grow even more. The pads at RPM can mostly upgrade M&I and grow Inferred at the same time. Only North Downhill would be purely targeting new inferred. The other pads can drill in 2 directions - towards the known resource, and toward the 'connection zones' or 'open zones' - upgrading and growing, from the 1 pad: see Uphill pad as a clear example.



I'm quite pleased with the list of drill targets for 2024 (North Uphill, North Downhill, Valley, South. Then Trumpet, Shoeshine, Muddy Creek, Stibium). But I'm wary that they may only achieve half of them... Last year, they cancelled some pads (most of Train, Trumpet, 1 Valley pad).