El Cobre - easy exploration

The hardest thing in exploration is finding mineralization, once you've found it, that is the hard part done and all you have to do is keep drilling to find how big it is, by drilling a little further away from the "discovery hole" with each drill-hole.

However, there is the another approach. Once you've found the mineralization, just keep drilling the same area time and time again. I'm going to call this the "Poliquin" method after the stunning drilling program at El Cobre.

Let's look at the drilling over time....

Jan 2017

Some great results....

Efficient planning, lots of holes from the same platform

from the same areas they were drilling in 2016

May 2017

More great results....

Not much different....

In exactly the same place. maybe they should move the rig?

July, 2017

Seasonal variation, drilling from south to north. Why didn't I think of that!

August, 2017

Yawn, different month, same shit

heck, can you fit any more hole in there

But look, that section looks virginal.

Like Stormy Daniels...

I'm guessing it would have been hard to get all the drill-holes on it.

September, 2017

At fecking last, a hole drilled 45m away from another on!!!!!



A massive 45m...

Keep it easy, drill the same stuff twice

So all we are missing are the holes that will be drilled from East to West and from West to East, like this....

Yellow -  Hilary and Trinity drilling; Cyan - Wold cup disappointment and Michaelmas drilling

I wonder if I have ruined Almadex's 2018 El Cobre drill program?

Other targets

Why break a winning formula, Almadex is doing the same elsewhere - here is El Porvenir.

Hey, they hit some stuff between other holes with stuff in them. Amazing!

and Raya Tembrillo

It's almost art, the beautiful symmetry

It is so nice that Almadex are minimizing the surface impact from drilling by carefully recycling their drill-pads. Personally, I'm going to vote for them in the "most holes from a single platform" award category at the PDAC this year, and as a show of solidarity,  I'm going to show my support by using less toilet paper to wipe my arse.



Why is this a problem? Almadex can keep pumping out great press releases every month, but like the boy who cried wolf, they'll eventually have to do a resource calculation that will show that El Cobre is a Wonderbra project, where lots and lots of well-(metal) endowed drill-holes will produce a resource that is a lot smaller than expected.

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