I'm getting old. Or I should practise drinking more often. Or get more sleep. I'm just now getting my thoughts together after the luncheon. I only got a couple hours sleep each night, and I need my beauty sleep.
Some random thoughts/stuff I liked:
1. Noront will make all drill hole data and assays linked thereto fully accessible by anyone. Utilizing an interface format more familiar to users of CAD software, or building trades costing, you could select a hole from a menu, an image of its location in the deposit would appear, and a drop down menu would allow you to look at assays or ranges of assays at any depth along it. They already use similar software, of course. What would be novel is allowing access to it in real time, online. I can't wait to take it for a spin.
2. Secondly, there was a 3D rotating image of the Eagle's Nest deposit (Eagle 1A, 1B, 1C and any other (hopefully) pods have now been collected together as Eagle's Nest) that didn't get displayed in the Powerpoint version online, so at some point I expect that you will be able to see a rotatable image of the deposit on the website. What was not mentioned by anyone who's reported on the luncheon is that there were a number of core holes plotted on the 3D image (what Jelle/roos called the cartoon) that have not been reported. Hole 49 was straight down through the heart of it. There were around a dozen more faint lines from surface, penetrating pods B and C at depth, holes with the more typical 50-60 degree dip angles (giving width intersections, and thus internal grade variations). I don't think it was a mistake they made, revealing more information with that image than was verbally stated. I think it was a heads-up to people such as myself about just where they were at. JJ said that some of those were planned holes. Mmmm....maybe. Maybe some of those are completed. I think they KNOW they've got a boat-load of nickel down there.
3. I think Wes's denial of knowing the drill progress was nothing more than plausible deniability. By not being updated the morning of the presentation, or within minutes of it, or whatever, he could deny that he knew the progress precisely. I note that he did not put John Harvey on the record, although he could have done so.
4. I'm unable to cut and paste images from the slide presentation for some reason; I just get the background. If you'll refer to slide 22, you'll see Eagle 1 going from uneconomic at 30,375 to economic with pods B and C at ~90,000. It's important to recognize that the units being represented here are metric tonnes of contained nickel, perhaps even recoverable nickel (i.e. accounting for losses in processing). The indicated nickel in the 43-101 resource estimate is nearly 40,000 metric tons. As such, this is an exceedingly conservative economic valuation metric. It gives no value whatsoever to the copper, let alone the PGE and gold.
5. I came out of the room a lot more comfortable than when I went in. A lot more comfortable. I don't care if this is all just posturing before a take-out. If you are going to production, there is a check-list of things that need to be done. The more items you get ticked off on the check-list, the more of that blue-sky value is being capitalized, with respect to NAV. I foresee items being checked off of that list in an efficient and timely manner, going forward.
6. What an amazing bunch of people we have in Noront. I cannot even begin to count the number of people who greeted me so very warmly, beginning with JJ, who greeted me as "The Hoov". I couldn't help but smile at that. I am very grateful for all the kind words that came my way. It was a pleasure to meet every single one of you, some for the first time, and some again. And thank you Mr. Voisin for buying everyone dinner.
Lar
