Drilling Results 2022 Cheat Sheet
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Interpreting and analysing drilling results can be quite a tough challenge. And while there are many factors to consider, the ore grade is arguably the easiest place to start when looking at drilling results.
What is ore grade?
The grade of an ore is the measure of material concentration found within. Depending on the material, it’s usually measured either as a percentage (%) per tonne or gram per tone (g/t). Usually, only precious metals are reported using the latter.
Understanding the concept of ore grade is pretty straightforward. The higher, the better. But often, mining companies try to pamper up their results by throwing around the words “high grade” even when it’s not the case.
So, how does an investor know whether the reported drilling results are actually as good as a company says?
This sort of analysis takes time and depends on many different circumstances. However, I’ve compiled some lookup tables that can give a rough indication of whether a mining company is trying to put lipstick on a pig when reporting drilling results.
Base Metals & Fertilizers Drilling Results
Precious Metals Drilling Results
Special Cases: Lithium (Li2O)
The ore grade of lithium is a bit more complicated than other metals because it varies depending on where it is found. Concentration within minerals or rock is usually higher than in brines. But it again varies depending on the type of rock and brine.
When announcing drilling results, mining companies often give details about the type of material it’s currently digging through to get to the lithium. With this information, the following lookup tables can again provide a rough estimate of what low, medium, and high-grade ore concentrations should look like.
Originally published at https://themoneycog.com.
