Ray, much too early to come to rule anyone out of this play. Quite the contrary. We have indications that there is a whole new pipe field in the area. Those small diamonds and indicator minerals in the MEO/NCS/TYR jv Kennecott most likely didn't come from the NWT!! Rather, there is strong evidence to suggest they originated somewhere near. With so much glacial overburden it is going to take time to find the best pipes.
Airborne geophysics is going to be a key here as there are no discreet indicator mineral trains on the surface as in the NWT to follow up ice to airborne geophysical targets.
Probably a few people got on the PUG bandwagon last week with 14M shares trading one day and 22M or so the next.
My perception is that this is a long term investigation program sort of as follows:
- are there lots of targets, yes
- are they on both MEO/NCS/TYR jv Kennecott and Ashton/PUG jv Alberta Energy Corp properties, yes
- are there some pipes that have kimberlitic rocks, YES, 2 out of 2 targets on the Ashton/PUG, not bad for a start
- are there more kimberlitic pipes, most likely based on the 2 out of 2 success
- is there a whole cluster of pipes, most likely based on what has been indicated to date
- do these pipes have diamond indicator materials, don't know yet but if not where did the sampling diamond indicator materials come from
- do these pipes have diamonds, don't know yet but again if not where did those small surface diamonds come from
- do the pipes contain lots of diamonds, large commercial grade diamonds, gem quality diamonds - DON'T KNOW YET, premature to even guess
But is this exciting? You can bet your sweet duck it is. Basically if we are in the middle of a diamondiferous pipe field, it won't matter which company shares you own, you may have a substantial appreciation in the value of those shares.
With gold in the dumps, the Bre-X matters in the process of uncertainty, thus many other companies in Indonesia likewise, too early for Voisey's Bay, but nearing the season for diamonds hunts in the NWT, a new discovery if significant may get a lot of interest.
We have to have patience here. One thing is likely for sure, with only about 6M shares float of Ashton, and now many of those likely to not trade as people with shares will likely hold, there may be effectively a lot less than 6M float. What this means is that if significant finds now develop, there could be quite a scramble to get some of these scarce free floating shares.
If you recall, there were only about 4M shares of Kettle River when the DHK Tli Kwi Cho pipe was discoverd, and Kettle River shares went to about $17. Investors may be more cautious now, but the potential exists for a very interesting few months here.
Since, this discovery is basically in the middle of a very good supporting infrastructure, and because of the nature of the land, it does not appear to be seasonally restricted. That is, we don't have to wait for lakes over pipes to freeze to 3ft of ice to put a driill safely on the ise, it is not as cold or dark in the winter as in the NWT. It is not as costly to operate, helicopters and igloo tests in the NWT must cost a bundle.
So drilling down through 150ft of glacial overburden to a bunch of targets is basically the agenda. Refining the geophysics will help as findings are related back to this.
Zeroing in on the best targets will simply take time, and this will be fun to watch and see how it develops. |
