let's look at Nova to get an idea of scale!ball park...

let's look at Nova to get an idea of scale!

ball park figures to keep it simple, assuming Nova type grades for Ni and Cu.

A quick google search indicates:

IGO effectively paid ~$100M
per 1M tonnes of Ni ore for Nova

~17Mt for $ 1.8 Bn

17 Mt tonnes
could be outlined by a rectangle
20m thick x 200m down/up dip x 1000m
long x density,

(let's say 4.2 for density (sg) assuming combination of heavy matrix to massive sulphide.)

Example: let's take a smaller block of Nickel Sulphide mineralisation:

20m x 50m x 500m
x 4.2 sg

~ 2Mt

or 20m x 100m x 250m
x 4.2 sg

~2Mt

let's say at $100M/Mt

very simplistically, something of that size with Nova type grades could be worth in the order of $200M to the right company,
assuming it could be mined economically.

Mining! now that's a whole different topic!

So it's always useful to draw a schematic rectangle ( to scale) on paper or in your mind to visualise what a 5Mt or 10Mt ore body might look like in 3D.

As one can probably imagine to drill something economic takes a lot of drill holes and time to complete.

something in the order of ~30 holes could possibly outline/delineate ~2Mt into a resource as a rough guide, 6x 50m cross sections , 4 X holes per section,
plus some infill holes to check data, including twin holes and /or scissor holes if warranted.

Hope that helps you get a feel for scale when reviewing drilling data.