Diggers n Dealers 2023, page-29

Hi Mumbly

The answers to your questions in layman terms are,

1. Most diamond drilling underground is for grade control (closely spaced for clearer definition of the orebody), resource definition (tighten up the spacing of the exploration holes to get a better understanding and consistency of the orebody) and exploration drilling ( wider spacing and targeting areas of potential).
2. First ore is, as the name suggests, the first ore out of the mine. This ore comes from the ore drives that come online as the decline and accesses reach the planned levels. These ore drives produce around 200t per day per heading. Mining the ore drives generally produces the most dilution of ore grades, especially for narrow orebodies.
3. First stopes is when the ore drives are finished and the mining between levels can take place. Quicker and cheaper than level development and generally less ore dilution.
4. Steady state production is achieved when everything is ticking along nicely. Ore is coming up from a number of ore drives and numerous stopes. The consistency of the ore supply can be maintained with lower risks to the mine plan.

Hope this helps, cheers.