I would suggest that given the information that CNJ have already announced in their MASSIVE SULPHIDE LENSES INTERSECTED AT CASCATA PROSPECT announcement from the 24th of September, Thomas Abraham-James (TAJ) has probably already run an XRF gun over all of these drill-cores "on-site" before shipping them out. In addition, and once they arrived at a secure location, TAJ clearly stated that he and his team would be carrying out their own "sampling" of these drill cores before sending them off to the labs in Australia and Europe for final and official assaying.
Generally, the use of an XRF gun or some other sort of "realtime" on-site initial drill-core analysis technique, is pretty much standard practice in the mineral exploration industry today. The reason is very simple i.e. it allows experienced geologists to make very informed decisions about whether to continue drilling a hole or whether to perhaps quickly move onto the next one. During an extensive drilling program, and perhaps one under adverse conditions, which was definitely the case in Greenland, such "realtime" on-site drill-core analysis is essential.
Once each drill hole is completed, the use of this "realtime" on-site initial drill-core analysis will also alllow an experienced geologist to make a well informed decision about the different types of mineralisation that have been found in each drill core (but of course not the exact grades of each type of mineralisation). The geologist can then select which of these drill core cores they wish to have logged and then sent to the lab. This process will ensure that fewer "barren" drill-core samples are sent to the lab, which saves time and reduces the laboratory analysis costs.
Moving onto CNJ specfically, TAJ has already stated that CNJ's first round of drilling in Greenland was very successful, and that he has already identified "visible sulphide mineralisation" at each prospect (through the use an XRF gun?).
Considering that CNJ extensively drilled three prospects (Miki, Sortekap and the newly identified Cascata), and given the fact that they drilled a total length of 3,480 meters, CNJ had a huge amount of drill-cores to be logged, sampled and assayed (the first two of these processes were always to be carried out by TAJ and his team).
From what I gather, TAJ and his team firstly had to log, pack and then send most of these drill-cores to a secure facility in Europe. Once these drill-cores arrived, they then had to be re-logged and then "sampled". IMHO, this "sampling" process was made to ensure that no "barren" drill-core samples would be sent to the labs.
In a nutshell, and IMHO, TAJ and his team have clearly already carried out their own extensive drill-core analysis i.e. "sampling" (which probably also took several weeks), before sending the drill cores off to the assay labs in Australia and Europe for final and official assaying.
It is the results of these final and official assays from these labs "that are to be released in the fourth quarter of 2021", upon which we are all currently nervously waiting for. Given that we still have 3 weeks to go in the fourth quarter of 2021, it is entirely possible that we will receive either these assay results before the end of this year, or an announcement about a delay in the processing of these assays.
With regard to the timing of the announcement of these first round of assay results, once TAJ receives these assays back from the lab, he will probably need a week or two in order to analyse these results himself, and then an additional couple of days to formulate an official ASX announcement.
All in all, I am not in the least worried that we have not yet received these first round of assays. In fact, IMHO, if we had of received these final assays in the early part of this quarter, this would have indicated to me that there were an awful lot of "barren" drill-cores i.e. less drill-cores to be processed = less assay turnaround time.
I am therefore currently operating under the assumption that TAJ and his team took several weeks to conduct their own extensive "sampling" (drill-core analysis), and because most of these drill-core were highly encouraging, TAJ decided that the majority of them must be sent out to the labs for final and official assaying.
I would suggest that this mammoth and highly important task is very close to completion.
(20min delay)