I have been a shareholder for about a year and this is my first post.
What I’m suggesting might be a stretch for some, but I thought I would share it anyways. I think walkerboss and newbie101 might be on to something.
One of Lori’s biggest challenges is to show there is gold…to keep interest growing. But she can’t show too much, too fast, because she needs time to prove up the full potential of the property.
It makes total sense to drill the first holes around the periphery.
Take a look at this image from the link library…
http://agoracom.com/ir/steliasmines/forums/discussion/topics/491511-recommended-high-priority-drill-targets/messages/1572333#message
If you wanted excitement and interest to increase with each press release, which 12 places would you drill first?
I would want to start with the holes around the periphery…and announce the results for T11 and T17 last. Build excitement.
Drilling the holes in the periphery would also give good information about whether there was widespread dissemination of gold around the property. What if these holes showed a significant amount of gold using a cutoff of .5 g/ton? If I understand other posters correctly, I think mining could still be economically feasible…especially if you haven’t even factored in the anomalies yet. Management probably already has a decent idea about whether an open pit mine is feasible.
So…back to one of my first comments. Suppose shareholders are really starting to lose patience, so she has to put something out. Suppose Lori wants to show the gold is widespread, but she doesn’t want to show too much, too soon. (That might elicit an unwanted offer too early). She uses a higher cutoff to downplay the significance of what they have learned so far. The results using a lower cutoff can be released after they have announced results from the anomalies themselves. If the holes in the anomalies come in at a higher average grade…and they can show that a significant part of the area that they tested outside the anomalies has > .5 g/ton…then things become really interesting.
Throw in the trenching results and the deep drilling results and the majors would have a ton of information to make a decision. And the information would have been released in a sequence that would not have attracted an unwanted offer too early.
I know I am making a lot of assumptions here, but you can see how a well orchestrated plan could, and should, lead to increasing interest. And yet, there is never quite enough information for a major to act on…until Lori is ready for them to make an offer.
This type of strategy would make sense to me.
