The 5 sections they are clearing the overburden from are from demarcation 2 to 7. The drill holes 69 to 71 were purposely placed 300 meters apart in the area encompassed by those 5 sections.
The new drill holes were much deeper than the previous 68-and they didnt run out of iron in the new holes-they quit the holes to move on- having apparently accomplished their immediate objective-among other things probably wanted assurance of depth before going to all the work of removing the 37 average feet? of overburden.
In Sept they added land to the concession- I believe along the strike of the Coloso though thats just a logical guess from the timing and their operations
The loreto ore was reportedly taken from the light colored area of just one of those sections-and they could have kept working just the same are of the loreta ore for a cuople years-
so I started wondering why a startup would be biting off so much when they would need more equipment -even w recent additions of cat 365 and 375 excavators and another cat 740 hauler and water truck and more dozers---to mine all of that area from which they are removing the overburden-and the only logical reason I could see is they are planning on really stepping up operations-and then we saw pics of high level BaoSteel officials -the Pres of Bao Brazil standing next to one of the new drill holes.
Now theres no guarantee of any deal w Bao and Bob hasnt told me 1 word re Bao but I was connecting the dots-startups dont go to such great lenghts to expand unless they believe they will have the money to do so-and equipment is expensive -and Bob is REALLY cost conscious(so again why the huge expansin unless Bao?) and got the cat 375 non operational and rebuilt it,as he continues to do w some other equipment.
So the vast expansion does not fit Bobs historical m.o. but it does fit Bao's and at the least u'd think a longterm contract-which doesnt require the visits of multple high level Bao officials-would come out of apparent quiet period Bao negotiations.
