More from the PDAC:
via stockhouse
Hey thanks Stockstag,
I was one of the youngest people at that booth today it was pretty funny. I should have asked more questions, but I'm still a rookie so Im learning. Yes NOVA and Samarian thats what the geologist told me the other guy wasn't so forth coming about it cause I went and asked twice. I'm curious to know about EPC because Peter theortically said the whole basin should have potash, STB says the deposit is open all the way around where they mined also. Can't wait to hear what fairihj has to say. I wonder if that was him with that huge white beard lol. That would make my day lol.
Agouliar
First, I'm not a "he said.. she said" guy primarily because I don't want to mislead, be misinterpreted or sound like i'm pumping a stock but I will say this... Today at PDAC I talked to about a dozen company reps/ geologists at various company booths, the ones that interested me the most and out of all of them I was the most impressed with the Allana reps. I came away with a very good feeling and I`ll leave it at that.
Best of luck... next week will be most interesting!
Zorbing
Farhad will be there tomorrow and Tuesday.
43-101 should be out late April early May
Drilling as quickly as they can to get as many holes as possible into that resource calculation.
Hole 11 probably coming out tomorrow or Tuesday no need to drill any deeper…big smile. 12 is still being drilled
One of AAA`s drills will continue drilling the grid in the east with 5 holes to be drilled in the south west portion of the property to fill in the area between hole 11 and hole 8. As I type I am trying to access the drill hole map but the presentation on their web page is apparently being updated and is unavailable. So using the drill hole map from the Dundee report. Once hole 12 is complete they will move that drill to the east shore where they expect to see very shallow horizons (similar to STB which is expected to trend onto AAA property) they plan to do at least 3 holes there for starters (that is decision is based on preliminary seismic dataJ). It should be noted that in the central part of the property where the potash is deeper they are hitting temperatures of 80`C causing some very technically challenging conditions…In hole 4 a lot of potash was left at the bottom of the hole because they were unable to retrieve and they failed to even reach the Kainitite Member. The temperatures at that depth is 80`C which results in the drilling fluids (brine which is a combination of sodium, potassium and magnesium) to crystalize at shallower depth where it is cooler. They drilled through the summer at daytime ambient of up to 50`C. hard on equipment. Hole 5 was abandoned due to these technical problems. The brine is saturated at surface at 40’C and when they go deeper into higher temperatures it becomes under-saturated and starts eating away at the drill hole wall. As it is going back up the drill string on the outsides it freezes (crystalizes) causing the drill string to get stuck. The drills they have access to at this time just do not have the capacity to handle that kind of load. So they will go deep later in the mine plan. Note that the basin thickness is probably about 1km. What is at the bottom no one knows.
So for right now they are going after the shallower less challenging potash. Note if they have exceptional holes on the east side they may delay the 43-101 for a very short time so they can include this part of the property. The 43-101 resource estimate is a function of both seismic data and drill hole results. They expect to be able to use a 1000 meter radius for indicated and will drill accordingly to achieve that kind of coverage (2 km spacing). The results of the seismic will be complete in a couple weeks.
In terms of land availability they have their eye on several of adjoining properties and they feel they are pretty high up in the queue owing to the significant efforts they have put into drilling the basin i.e.…they have done the most work. The same owner of the Haro block owns the big block to the east side which AAA surrounds. Good chance of getting this. Has to do with the existing owner not committing to enough exploration. It gets kind of tricky for the block adjoining to the south side since hole 11 is going to create some attention which will make it a more valued chunk of property.
When AAA first staked the area the Ethiopian government told them to maintain a 5km buffer on either side of the border (Ethiopia border with Eritrea). No development on the border but the governments have allowed people to stake it any ways….creates some question marks with South Boulder resource (this is not material to AAA as they did not stake within that 5 km limit). It was originally a UN buffer. Obviously this also creates a big question about the Ethiopia Potash concession? I suspect anyone who interested in buying shares in Ethiopia Potash when they start trading should try to get some clarification first. Peter says that they (AAA) are trying to get some clarification from the government on this. Again this does not impact AAA. In terms of politics both Peter and the Geo from Lundin don’t consider there to be any political problems in terms of what they are doing. If anything this basin looks like it will be a very big reason to settle any differences between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Make the borders more friendly to simplify development of what is likely to become a very large and lucrative industry for those governments and the people. These people are all related like cousins. It would very much simplify future access to deep sea ports. I did not talk much about the new rail line but it will definitely be put into place to supply India and the Chinese. Not much of the potash will be used internally at first until development of farming gains traction but India and China will definitely be the main user. The rail line will initially be to the south and use the ports at Djibouti. The roads continue to improve to the point where getting machines in is lot easier. Peter was saying when they started there two years ago they were sleeping in huts. Now new modern camps are going up.
Resource ballpark so far….500 million tonnes. Peter seemed comfortable with that number until more holes are drilled. He seemed to be agreeing with printouts I was showing him of my resource calculation as much as he could. Some of it was obviously a stretch until more drill holes are known but I was pretty happy with how he was responding to my numbers.
As I said earlier April 1st is the cut off for the drill holes to be included in the resource but they will make an exception and defer for a couple weeks if the holes on the east side look really good. They are eager to get this 43-101 out. Interestingly they do not plan to do any scoping studies. They will go right to feasibility and that was said with real conviction. If they don’t get the east holes in the estimate it will take another 6 months before they can do a new one. There is an expectation that those east holes are going to add a lot of tonnage and they would like to get at least two holes included. I said time was on their side but the response was people want to see a resource sooner than latter especially after South Boulder put out a resource after only three holes. We had some discussion about this along the same lines as Karma and I had…scratching of the heads but will leave it at that for now. It will be a very important milestone for the company to get this 43-101 published.
They have preliminary seismic…They have a meeting on Wednesday to go over interpretation. About one month for public domain. Where recovery of core has not been great a down-hole gamma log is also used to identify the potash horizons for the purposes of resource calculations.
Re: the nova property to the south when hole 11 is reported you will see why we are so interested…unfortunately Nova will see it too so that will be a wash.
On the subject of BHP. The seismic company that was working for ALLANA had a 500 man camp (petro industry work). BHP has taken that over…correction on my earlier notes…BHP have ordered 140 truck (I think I said 150 in an earlier post). They are still at Allana camp right now as we speak with 6 people but this is an indication of the ramping up that is going on. They have flights going every day now on the land strip.
I still have some notes to go over but I think this is enough for now.
