Let me add that if they can recover these metal buttons from a 5kg sample they can easily collect 5kg samples from 3m-5m intervals of the RC drilling. As I've calculated in a previous post a 1m length of an average diameter RC drill hole drilled into fresh gabbro weighs ~ 54kg, plenty enough material to split a 5kg sample out off.
If you believe the gold is evenly disseminated through the gabbro spend your money on assaying not drilling.
Rather than drilling many holes as is planned with the current drilling, drill 2 or 3 holes and assay them with tight composite sampling. If you produce buttons of metal from all the short spaced drill samples down the hole with the grades reported from the composite outcrop sampling, you will soon find that the number of doubter diminishes.
It then all becomes about the cost of extraction, ie the amounts and costs of acids involved and how much energy is required not the sampling method.
I don't think the exploration should be shut down completely just scaled down so the costs are handled.
It seems pretty clear to me that the bulk sampling is being employed because the cost of the metallurgical scheme is currently high. What I'm saying is put more money into "assaying" and less into drilling. Even if the method is unreliable, the metal buttons, as others are saying speak for themselves until proven otherwise.
In this instance I think the ASX is behaving well. The more information the market has the better.
I think the company should make it clear to the market the reseason for all the current composite sampling is the expense and not some limitation of the technique. I also think the company should devote money to holes that give the maximum amount of information about how the gold is distributed even if they don't know what form in which it occurs or how it was emplaced at this point in time.
Eshmun
BBX Price at posting:
20.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
