Fantomas, my friend; I hesitate to dispute your figures, but let's consider.
These drills will be capable of 2500m, 2.5 km. Also consider that they have ordered two of them. Why? If this is just exploration, why not just bring in one, and drill this distance down to see if there is anything there? At any rate the first drill will drill the first hole, hopefully into mineralization, and continue until it runs through and out the other side. If that "end of mineralization" turns out to be at or near the 2500m mark, I have a problem and a very nice one at that. The problem will be how to value 50m tons of ore at the average grades we are getting of late.
At any rate the first hole will cost 625k, as you state, if it is drilled to depth. However, the ensuing wedge holes would only be drilled from first contact with mineralization, and therefore would be less costly than the original mother hole. If you assume there will be 5 wedge holes off each mother hole, one can assume an average cost of about 325k for the six holes. This cost may be high too as the new drills should be more powerfull, and therefore easier drilling could save a bit.
At any rate, I guess my point is that although this drilling is expensive, the only reason we will actually drill to 2500m is because we have mineralization all the way down. If that is the case, I doubt we will be too concerned with the costs.
Best regards
K
