Earlie from Earlie"
Greystar/Ventana Comments
If one spends some quality time examining the drilling results, news releases and maps found on the web sites of both Greystar and Ventana, some interesting observations seem to be apparent. I will post a few such observations today with more to follow shortly. (No use causing glazed eyeballs). (g)
Property Ownership
Greystar has 100% ownership of its properties, which total 30,050 hectares. It has evaluated/explored roughly 10 % of this land.
Ventana “controls” 4573 hectares of land, of which it has ownership of 3,710 hectares.
Drilling Activity
Ventana commenced active drilling in August, 2006 and has completed 116 holes (20,600 meters) to this point in time. Ventana’s drill program is contained within two relatively modest areas….. “La Bodega”, a rectangle measuring 850 meters along the Ventana/Greystar border, which extends southwest for 300 meters and “La Mascota”, which measures 750 meters northeast/southwest and is relatively narrow. Nasty topography separates the two drilling areas by 250 meters.
Greystar commenced active drilling 16 years ago and has completed about 900 holes (in excess of 300,000 meters) to this point in time. In fact, it has completed 23,000 meters of drilling since its last (2008) resource report. Its entire Angostura property has been drilled at 50 meter centers with vein-intensive areas drilled at 25 meter centers. Its Angostura resource exceeds 15.0 million ounces.
Most of Ventana’s drilling activity to date has taken place in close proximity to Greystar’s Angostura property (i.e., “La Bodega”). In checking the drill results and in comparing the drilling maps, as one might expect, this part of Ventana’s drill program evidences similar geology and similar intercepts to those uncovered on Greystar’s Angostura property….. i.e., solid but not “barn burner”. Unfortunately, the topography steepens across Ventana’s “La Bodega” rectangle. While Greystar will mine its Angostura property via an open pit, this approach does not appear feasible for “La Bodega” (see maps as well as recent comments by Canaccord’s gold analyst). “Grade” is but one of many elements that must be acceptable for a deposit to be of commercial value.
In its “La Mascota” strip, Ventana’s reported results have been better than in its “La Bodega” (Greystar border) rectangle but the better results have also been found at significant depths. It is hard to imagine anything but underground mining with respect to “La Mascota” and given the topography and local watershed, this would not be an easy thing.
“High Grade” Results
As noted in an earlier commentary, some analysts and investors think Ventana has found “higher grades” than has Greystar. This is not true. The following “high grade” intercepts were found in a review of Greystar’s news releases.
Greystar Resources Ltd. High Grade Intercepts
Hole No. From(m) To(m) interval(m) Gold(gm/t) Silver(gm/t)
VB08-07 326.00 329.45 3.45 50.46 35.20
VB08-01 13.00 14.00 1.00 141.00 892.00
LL07-12 203.05 207.70 4.65 39.20 502.20
US105-17 253.00 257.75 4.75 54.07 30.10
VB05-13 385.25 386.50 1.25 392.00 10.80
VBE07-01 43.00 49.00 6.00 41.83 13.40
VBE07-01 136.00 138.00 2.00 32.50 45.00
VBE07-02 126.00 127.00 1.00 48.40 64.60
ALE06-13 289.85 290.55 0.70 36.00 188.00
ALE06-10 464.00 465.00 1.00 77.90 118.00
VBE06-25 187.50 188.50 1.00 136.00 58.00
VBE06-16 221.50 222.80 1.30 199.00 1065.00
VBE06-17 407.00 417.00 10.00 48.03 21.70
VBE06-19 15.20 16.80 1.60 103.50 8.90
VBE06-21 195.00 196.35 1.35 168.00 36.90
Greystar has drilled over 140 holes at Agnostura with intercepts that graded higher than 1 OUNCE per ton. The company also notes that 45% of the Angostura gold is contained in 7% of the mineable rock.
Ventana’s published bulletins also evidence selected high grade results, but in the fine print, the company reminds the reader to cut these published “down-hole” results. A Cannacord analyst who recently visited the Ventana property suggests….. “True widths for the near-surface drilling are estimated at 70% to 95% of the intercepts reported. True widths for the deepest drill holes to date are likely in the range of 50 to 70% of mineralized intervals reported.”
Here are samples of Ventana’s published high grade results
La Bodega
80.9 meters – 8.62 G/T
106 meters – 7.8 G/T)
29 meters – 5.8 G/T
La Mascota (including results from deeper depths)
12.75 meters – 34.62 G/T
2 meters – 27.6 G/T
2 meters – 26.2 G/T
24 meters – 3.4 G/T
36 meters – 13.34 G/T
4 meters – 64.85 G/T
1 meter – 15.73 G/T
25 meters – 8.01 G/T
5 meters – 9.67 G/T
9 meters – 13 G/T
8 meters – 17 G/T
To the extent that underground (as opposed to surface) mining is mandated, the reported numbers have to be significantly elevated to be considered “commercially viable”.
More later
Earlie |
