Denny, I share your concern and so earlier this week (see Msg #18) I had called and talked with Len Harris and his son (Dick / Don ???) asking these same questions. My understanding (can't seem to find my notes) was that there had been four holes drilled by a previous owner. Don't think it was the Japanese company since they weren't interested in the property except as a way to get listed on the VSE. To date, CVR hasn't done any significant work of their own, other than acquisition and their own inspection of the mineralization layer.
As I understand, the mineralization is in some well defined geological layer. In this instance, the concentration is supposedly rather uniform. So the amount depends only on how thick the layer is, its extent, and its concentrations. The holes were drilled only to determine the concentrations and check for uniformity. Scandium was not of interest at the time -- it was only the nickel -- and that was too low to be of economic interest. The extent and thickness of the layer are observed from surface information. No grab samples are needed. The thickness for this type of layer is also supposedly quite constant (I'm not a geologist, so can't comment further) and was observed to be about 10 ft. The 800K tons came from those initial observations + average concentrations from the four holes.
Recently when they revisited the site with the major, they found (from the famous rock slide) that the layer was more like about 30 feet thick and extended much further than originally thought. Thus the (unofficial) number of 3 million. Apparently they don't want to publish that number without the kind of work you and I both feel is needed. Len characterizes the ore body only as "indicated", not proven. Clearly, one can easily poke holes in all of this reasoning, however, based on my talk with Len, I took a small position in the company, and as things develop I'm considering increasing that position.
If you want to take up the challenge and get more specific information from Len Harris, I'm sure he will be willing to spend time talking to you ..... and of course we would love to hear your report back to us on this forum. |
