Drilling does have a purpose. Currently the mine plan is West 45 followed by Far West. These two need to be thoroughly drilled so that the mine sequencing can be done optimally. After that the current plan is Waterloo. So it needs to be drilled to effectively plan mine development. But with Liontown / Liontown East, there is a point to drilling it well enough to be able to effective design a mine and get a DFS for the building of that mine. That needs to be done well before the mine is actually needed. And with Scarecrow, it makes sense to drill it because if it is high grade and big, then it might change the order in which you want to spend your development dollars. For maximum NPV, the best deposits should be mined first. I think we'll find exploration drilling continues to happen, even for deposits that are from new prospects. That's not just geologists' curiosity, but getting full information for best economic planning. Not to mention that drilling up a large resource is the path to moving the plant from 60% to 100% utilisation, a stated and very desirable goal of the company.
The $10M facility available with the Zn / Pb offtake should give them the flexibility to keep spinning the drill bit. But the real payoff for the shareholders comes when the sales begin. Roll on commissioning.
Cheers,
Tim.
RVR Price at posting:
24.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
