Thanks for this post.
a few things
1. The $13/kg figure is in today's money and so inflation has already been factored, at least to 2010 when the previous NI was written. Clearly, we would not be having this discussion if that wasn't the case.
2. I believe Dan indicated that the discovery of the old collar was by warren and not by a third party. This was noted in the letter I believe, going from memory there. Srsr reported this to RPA and no one would hhave been the wiser if they hadn't. As much as you have focused on the error and attributed blame to Dan, I think it is a testament to the continuity of ore grades within the resource.
3. The old grid was done in relation to an iron pin. Tom noted during his 2 visits to the property the amount of vegatative growth in the intervening years between his 2008 and 2012 visits. So, I don't think finding the old core locations is as trivial an exercise as you suggest. Going forward with gps, it shouldn't be an issue.
4. It means that ALL of the holes drilled by SRSR are off in their relation to the old grid, which means RPA would have to update the resource model to account for this revelation.
5. Being able to precisely locate the old grid in relation to the new grid will result in a higher confidence in both efforts.
6.which may require additional confirmation drilling, thought to be 2 holes at this point, in order to achieve an indicated resource estimate.
7. Most of the message board posting has been focused on the resource estimate and if it will be considered a "curren"t resource for NI compliance purposes. But, as I note above with the continuity of resource , we know the rocks are there so to speak.
8. The real issue is being able to get them out of the ground profitably. As you note, what was seen as a potential showstopper in the past was solved by the effort of lerner and the csm, and it may ultimately be an advantage for us. This point was not well apparemt in the matter of fact way that it has been presented in the technical reports and difficult for a lay person to understand.
9. The difficulty encountered with nemegosenda ore was the small grain sizes made it difficult to liberate by conventional floatation methods, which are used by the 3 producing mines.
10. Additionally, the ore contains about 10% calcite, which can result in a high reagent consumption.
11. So, rather than conventional floatation or acid leaching, lerner figured out a way to extract the ore by grinding to 60 mesh, preoxidizing the ore, and then processing in a fluidized reagent bed using either COCl2 or CCl4, and then colecting the nbcl5 offgasses. The cl component can be removed, leaving only > 99% purity niobium oxide.
12. Phosgene was used as as a chemical weapon and is dangerous due to being nearly odorless and slow for symptoms to develop.
13. In lerners work, both phosgene and carbon tetrachloride were considered interchangeable in his process, but only phosgene was taken to the pilot plant stage.
14. The rationale for phosgenation was in part a product of the small market size for niobium in the 50's, when only a 1000tpy facility was being contemplated.
15. So, while theoretically interchangeable, carbon tetrachloride usage is still conceptual in nature.
16. The September pr laid out a plan that included a facility pre-feasibility study, which at last report in an interview with dan was said to be 90% complete.
perhaps, that work includes a look at the ccl4 variant among other things?
Another point unrelated. The MNDM cores were not as useful as hoped due to missing intervals. |
