Where we arePre-drilling, and saying so.
Nothing has been drilled and nothing has been proven. The objective of this phase is a proven reserve: a resource established by supervised exploration, estimated and signed to an internationally recognised reporting code, and carried through pre-feasibility to a bankable feasibility study.
Prove the rock, then design the pit off what the rock actually is, then cost the build off the designed pit, then finance it. Our central discipline is refusing to run that backwards.
We are not doing that work ourselves and we are not pretending to. It is executed by specialist mining engineers — VBKOM are our appointed engineers, a mining engineering practice that does this for a living. Our job at this stage is to hand them the right ground, ask the right questions, and pay for real answers rather than comfortable ones.
The work programme
- Exploration and site selectionDesk study, regional survey data, screening of candidates against written criteria — a defensible choice of ground.
- Supervised site investigationDrilling, logging, sampling and a revised 3D geological model, specified and supervised by a qualified geologist.
- Resource and reserve statementAn estimate classified and signed by a Competent Person to SAMREC. The hinge: the asset stops being a belief and becomes a reported figure.
- Scoping studyOrder-of-magnitude economics on the real orebody — whether to spend further, and on what.
- Pre-feasibility studyPit design, geotechnical slope rules, plant configuration and capital schedule. The first genuinely costed version of the business.
- Bankable feasibility studyThe full technical and economic case to lending standard. Nobody finances plant, pit development and haul roads against a spreadsheet — they finance it against a reserve someone qualified has put their name to.
What is not yet true
Stated here rather than buried, because a company that hides its gaps is not worth talking to.
- Site control — we hold no ground. Site selection is a live phase.
- Resource — nothing drilled, nothing proven. No measured, indicated or inferred resource exists.
- Reserve — none. A reserve requires a signed statement and demonstrated economics.
- PSV specification — untested.
- Offtake — no agreement of any kind.
- SEZ status — not held, not claimed. Permitting would proceed by cession, under negotiation.
- Environmental certificate — not obtained.
- Professional appointments — VBKOM are our appointed engineers. The rest of the technical chain, the Competent Person included, is not yet appointed, and no scope for this rock has been quoted.
- The operating business — not formed. Nothing is built.
What we are looking for now
The capital ask for a build-out will be stated when a pit design supports it, and not before. What is needed now is the far smaller sum that funds exploration and the studies — and alongside it, technical validation, customer specification, and the professional appointments that make the resulting numbers signable.