Hi EZ,
My gut is that the current plan is to develop the LDM and Pegaso Nero conjointly probably via an open pit if the economics so indicate. Hoch is a premier underground vein developer. The LDM appears to be a near surface stratabound sedimentary copper deposit with some atypically high gold grades. Our next door neighbor to the south, the Lo Aguirre Mine, was just that as is the El Soldado to the north ofus. You might know these as “manto” deposits.
You can’t design the most efficient open pit design until after the PN and LDM are drilled out. If Hoch went in and did a bunch of underground operations at the LDM, SERNOGEOMIN might not like that when it came time to sign off on an open pit design and mine plan. North of us at either El Soldado or nearby El Salado they ran into this situation and permitting for an open pit was held up big time.
What they’re learning at the Antonino Adit will help them with planning out the PN/LDM and probably the Gordon diatreme breccia. Hoch may still have an option to be part of some kind of consortium to develop the LDM/PN. The LDM may or may not be economic as a stand-alone asset but it would probably be a lot more economic as part of an open pit/bulk mining project. I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that the LDM will shock all of us. Our hope would be an El Soldado type of deposit.
If the cash flow generated by the DL1 Vein project is anywhere near where I think it is going to be then Maurizio might want to advance the PN/LDM a bit before entering into a JV. There’s a lot of leverage involved in putting a million bucks or so into a project in order to “derisk” it for a major and perhaps increase the value 20-times the amount put in.
At the Antonino Adit, as of December 30, they had intersected 20 (twenty) new mineralized structures almost all of which we had no idea even existed. By now, 90 days later, who knows what that number is. We’ve all seen the photos. I’m not so sure that the option of open pitting all of these veins has been taken off of the table yet. In the photos, you can seethe outlines of various discrete structures, but you can also see large expanses of mineralized areas. Remember, we’re only about 100-meters below the plateau surface. That’s not a lot of overburden if it’s open pitable.
Unfortunately, the assays are taking forever unless management is waiting to present the results all at once which might be wise. The information being gathered will help create a block model which will help in deciding how to develop other areas of the ADL.
If the photos from the Auryn website “gallery” are trying to tell us that the Antonino Adit is sitting within a “supergene enrichment zone”(SGE zone) full of bornite, covellite and chalcocite as well as within a “boiling zone” with visible gold and chalcedonic/cryptocrystalline quartz, then Maurizio might be wise to let things play out there and keep a pen out of his hands when it comes to the PN/LDM. If an open pit ends up being feasible for the PN/LDM, then the calculus might change for the various other areas. For now, however, I’m figuring on underground mining at the DL1 Vein probably via “bench and fill” methodologies.
What I’m seeing is a whole bunch of “optionality”. How many of those 20 (or perhaps 30 by now) new mineralized structures in the Antonino Adit represent high-grade, near term production opportunities?
If you remember back to some of the early maps of the ADL, you might remember the maps showing the 6 or so main mesothermal veins in redon the eastern plateau. Surrounding the veins was this massive area of “argillic alteration” drawn in yellow. In areas it reached 200 meters in width. The Antonino Adit just taught us what’s underneath this yellow stuff just east of the DL1 Vein. It’s packed with mineralized veins, mineralized fissures, mineralized splays and ramifications, etc. It also has vast expanses of more generalized mineralization.
Does all of that yellow stuff on the maps have similar findings underneath it or was there something special about the yellow stuff over by the DL1 Vein? (a rhetorical question) Is it time to refer back to Perez’s hyperspectral satellite imaging survey and see where else on the ADL this yellow stuff is? Is it really a surprise that underneath all of this argillic alteration are a bunch of mineralized veins, fissures, faults, etc. ? No, not at all. It’s the same ore-bearing scalding hot hydrothermal fluids and gases that “altered” the surface granodiorite to argillic clays like kaolinite, illite and smectite that gives rise to mineralized veins, fissures, etc. For prospectors, whitish/yellowish “argillic alteration” at surface is the ”X marks the spot” place to concentrate your efforts. These structures form the “plumbing system” that brought up the hydrothermal fluids bearing the ore and altered the host rock. Converting granite to clay takes a lot of “upflow”. We shouldn’t forget that 91 million years isa long time for the provision of upflow. Of course, we had a “heads up” that these areas were likely “juiced”, maybe not to this extent, however.
We need to remember that at surface, the vegetation and soil hide the presence of veins. Trenching programs find some of them. If you drift an adit underneath the surface in fresh (nonweathered) rock, you can see what’s really going on in a much clearer fashion. If you went back to those early maps with the veins drawn in red and penciled in red the 20 or 30 new structures, the area in between the DL! And the Antonino Adit would be solid red. This is a “mesothermal vein SYSTEM” with 6 or so veins that made it to surface. We’ve been labeling these as “main veins”. One of the mineralized faults we just hit is over 6-times the width of the DL1 at surface. We don’t know which are the “main veins” yet. All we really know is that “SMFL” saw an outcropping of the DL1 and traced it out and averaged 64 gpt gold grades over30 years. The two widest veins found at surface that management refers to as “massive” because they exceeded 2-metersin width at surface, are located in the “Polverine” area just west of theintersection point with the DL1 Vein.
If all of that bluish rock believed to be bornite (an SGE indicating copper form with 63% Cu) does indeed indicate the existence of a “supergeneenrichment zone” then the question becomes how wide vertically is this zone and how wide laterally does it go. The average is over 200-meters vertically.
If a certain percentage of that SHINY YELLOW STUFF is indeed “visible gold” sitting in the midst of chalcedonic/cryptocrystalline quartz which we see plenty of, then the question is how wide vertically is this “boiling zone” which is where the highest-grade gold exists in any gold deposit. The range of widths of “boiling zones” is 50to 800 meters with an average of about 300-meters. Fingers crossed.
Whatever it is, it’s neither desired nor addictive. The tone of your attempts to enlighten us is abrasive & condescending; it appears to be exactly what you aim to do. We don’t need that, either.