hi mick, I'm not sure exactly what you're inferring in...

hi mick,

I'm not sure exactly what you're inferring in the first couple sentences.

for clarity. the 47Y mine life is based on proved and probable reserves of 94mT. Then there's a further 100mT+ in the inferred category.

Essentially means with more drilling, assessment etc the inferred category can boost the reserve categories and increase your economics. my initial comment was that KDR could have continue to drill and push more resources into higher geological confidence levels. this would have increased the mine life.

if they could have spent 10m doing that they probably would have. Usually drilling starts on your high impact zones best bang for buck, and work your way out. it then becomes more expensive to drill resources to the required geological confidence to have them included into probable and proven reserves at a certain point it become economical silly do so.

I presume KDR reached that point with a near 50y mine life knowing they had another 50y worth of material sitting in the ground.

if companies drilled orebodies to their entirety nothing would get mined. for e.g southflank at bhp is one of the largest iron ore deposits in the world. bhp just spent billions constructing infrastructure to support it. why? to get dollars in the door. they will spend 100m's in exploration over the next 10years adding to the ore bodies size and geological confidence.

if memory serves me that was owned by iluka who now receives a royalty for every tonne dug and shipped. maybe iluka and bhp should have just kept drilling?

strangely I'm not disagreeing with you which your response seems to infer. LTR looks like a prime target.

good luck

SF2TH