I am definitely not anywhere near being management with Rox.
There are exploring on the west of their Empire Mine and east they have finished drilling having hit some high grade in some zones. Quite a strike length of good material. (several miles) Empire produced about 180,000 ounces of 0.40 OPT. They can also add to the strike of that ore bearing material significantly.
Don't know where they are going on their moly right now, but I expect they will retest it soon. Grade considerations are up in the air and they have to focus on that area in this test.
They are financing again, I understand, to pay for some of these programs.
The first moly test ended inconclusively. It was done very late in the year due to permitting delays and was rushed on the ground. In my opinion they missed some aspects with regard to the lenses that demonstrably ran and took too much intervening material. They did demonstrate that they could make a good concentrate, so metallurgy is really good. What they have to demonstrate with the next test is where the grade is that can be small-scale mined. You can see zones on the surface, so now more careful engineering and sampling of the cut zones has to be done.
They cannot just trust that a zone runs 1400 feet long. In my stoping experience in gold for 30 years, this is unlikely.
Engineering control has been worked out for that. It was just about impossible last time as they were trying to finish up in one foot of snow with too few on site engineers. They also needed closely spaced (15) foot guide drilling and they did not have that either.
This will be corrected on the next test, so intelligent grade considerations can be made. I believe that due to the way they blast hole drilled it as well, the wallrock grade that I saw could have been missed. Ok, were missed. Some personnel I have talked to think that a 500 ton sample close to extrapolated grade can be made with more careful in house engineering work. So do I.
I did a lot of assaying of veins for gold mines. I don't believe I am deluded. And I walked that stripped vein more than once. I know a plan has been worked out to re-approach. As well, what must be looked at from a miners point of view is that the moly vein runs 0.10 OPT gold and this was not recovered, in my opinion a major mistake. As well they are 4 miles from the leach mine, Canada's richest mined gold at the time next to Goldcorp, and they have no less than seven vein some with high grade bulk gold samples taken from them. The property is far from dead, even if the moly does not pan out on the second bulk sample.
The upside that is contained within their property position cannot be ignored. That is not going away. Few people have taken a good look at it and I think management needs to refocus on their considerable options there. The seeming grass roots program surrounding their Empire work is possibly an major expansion of the Empire structure which according to underground sections I saw 20 years ago, and veins which were stripped on surface west of the mine, looks mineable.
A lot of stocks have fallen of late. Rox's chart I will admit is not strong over the past 3 months since their TSXV listing. They seem to need rabbits, but they do have golden turtles. Perhaps turtle stew will be better than rabbit sandwich.
Management has been in their 20 year and acquired a mill, permitted for moly and gold and operated two bulk samples. In my opinion the moly mill ran well, but the gold mill needs changing over to pressure stripping system a-la Micon's ethylene patent in Australia to improve recoveries. It was built in 1980's and has an antique atmospheric stripper. I don't know for sure, but it's operation and that stripping factor may have been the cause of the small gold bulk sample being disappointing. The facts are in milling and mining you have to tune mills, and samples of 1000 tons or less will NOT do that. They need 10,000 tons run-ins just to work the bugs out. This is the history of CDN milling you can read if you have the time.
I know/think the Empire has the ore. And more in both directions to 2 miles. Really. They need to go by ramp and trackless and take a 30,000 ton bulk sample with some innovative mining techniques and put tother a good underground explo team. This will take a year or more. And about 6 million.
In the meantime their Key lake property may see a bulk sample and perhaps one of two properties as well will see advanced exploration -- more than likely by earn ins. This is a LOT more than most junior gold miners have going on. They have three or four potential high grade producers. Know anyone else out there with all that? Ready to develop and explore? at 0.40 OPT and more?
Case closed.
Personally I am buying the CDN junior precious metals markets not selling. Especially when they have a base from which to build on.
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