Portia Iceberg (Bedrock Gold Target Drilling)

Tweet from HAV Management this morning, reminding us of the current Reverse Circulation ('RC') to test the Portia Bedrock Gold Target underneath the existing Portia pit.

As a reminder, this is current round of drilling (24 red lines below):



All RC holes would have been drilled using standard face-sampling bits, with bit sizes ranging from 120mm to 136mm (as per the recent Southern Extension drilling).

RC drill chips would have been received directly from the drilling rig, via a cyclone, and split as 1 metre intervals into those green bags in the Tweet this morning. This is what happened in the recent Southern Extension drilling at Portia as shown below:



Remember, the host mineralised unit dips east at approximately 45 degrees and Havilah to determine the down-dip extensions of the gold mineralisation beneath the current open pit. It would appear by the number of green bags and pink flags (I counted 18) it has almost finished the Portia Bedrock Gold Target RC drilling program

Depths of at least 130 metres below the Base of Tertiary (the current JORC gold resource layer) are expected.

The RC drillhole azimuth and dip will have been chosen to intersect the mineralized zones as nearly as possible to right angles and at the desired positions to maximize the value of the drilling data to HAV's Geologists.

IMLTHO, this current round of 24 drill holes will enable a JORC resource to be calculated and reported for the Portia Bedrock Gold Target underneath the current Portia open pit.

RC drilling uses rods with inner and outer tubes, the drill cuttings are returned to surface inside the rods. The drilling mechanism is a pneumatic reciprocating piston known as a hammer driving a tungsten-steel drill bit.



RC drilling ideally produces dry rock chips, as large air compressors dry the rock out ahead of the advancing drill bit.

Reverse circulation is achieved by blowing air down the annulus of the rod, the differential pressure creating air lift of the water and cuttings up the inner tube which is inside each rod. It reaches the deflector box at the top of the drill string then moves through a sample hose which is attached to the top of the cyclone.

The drill cuttings travel around the inside of the cyclone until they fall through an opening at the bottom and are collected in a sample bag. For any drill hole there will be a large number of sample bags, each one marked to record the location and drilling depth that the sample was obtained. The current HAV bag farm looks impressive:



The collected series of sample bag cuttings are later taken for analysis to determine the mineral composition of the drill hole. The analysis results of each individual bag represents the mineral composition at a particular sample point in the drill hole.

Geologists can then survey the drilled ground analysis and make decisions about the value of the overall mineral deposit.

As for the Southern Extension drilling, a HAV Geologist will undertake analyses of the drill samples using a XRF analyser:



The Portia Bedrock Gold Target resource estimation work will be completed at the conclusion of the drilling program when all assay results are in hand.

Cheers

These are only my random thoughts and it does not constitute investment advice. Before acting on any information you read and before making any financial or investment decisions, you should always consult your advisor(s) or other relevant professional expert

P.S. Until the end October 2016, HAV should still be hedged as a gold producer. So, between then and now, the spot gold price (up and downs, like today) is irrelevant IMLTHO.