Hi Ken, I don't think it's true that geologists (exploration teams) must recuse themselves, and I believe drilling is indeed the way. But:
(1) Exploration geologists must be thinking metallurgically from the very first exploration holes that start returning economic intercepts (or bring in met help). (2) A plan must immediately be developed to test the size of a potential deposit in the most judicious way possible. (3) Simultaneously with the progress of (2), the team must be thinking about available infrastructure and whether this will sink a project that's too small, or whether the project is big enough to sustain its own infrastructure development. There will be more things to add to this list, but the point is that there should be no buck-passing for a team that truly wants to find and develop a deposit (as opposed to those who want to sell an economic-looking intercept and buy a boat). Regards, Chris From: SEGMIN [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ken Witherly via SEGMIN Sent: Sunday, 14 July 2019 09:30 To: [email protected] Cc: Ken Witherly Subject: [SEGMIN] Tough Love Dear Colleagues The attached piece (2019_07_13_071546_2.pdf) was tucked away in one of those trade magazines that seems to be getting thinner and thinner with time. I still look at it however, as they sometimes score a piece I have not seen elsewhere which often these days, is the same material re-broadcast time and time again. The title of this piece "REPORT: URGENT NEED FOR MORE GOVERNMENT SUPPORT FOR CANADA'S MINING INDUSTRY" did not really thrill me as it seemed a yet another call from the private sector for government support; are we not supposed to be in an industry that can compete globally and return taxes and jobs for the country? (pardon the Canada bias here). The stats they list seem clear but how much the government can do in the face of such a difficult economic picture? Two things came to mind and both relate to geoscience. Central to the idea is that we need to make a concerted effort to focus on finding "good" deposits and as soon in the discovery cycle as possible. By 'good', I mean ones that when mined, stand a decent chance of making money over the life of the deposit. Finding these deposits sooner than later also allows for greater flexibility in the required planning stages, permitting companies to make better assessments as to what deposits they should develop and when. How do we achieve this? In minerals exploration literature or convention forums, there seems to be very little discussion about how to discriminate the quality of a deposit in the discovery stages before there has been a lot of drilling. At the individual deposit scale, geologists likely don't see any means to define deposit quality without a lot of drilling, so they typically recuse themselves from the discussion focused on how to define deposit quality in the early stages of exploration. Most likely, they will say 'it can't be done' and drilling is the only want to establish deposit 'quality' in an unequivocal way. This pushes what could be considered a de facto truth that there is only one way to do things which is the way we always have. This approach is no longer viable. If such a ranking is to be done, then some form of remote sensing involving either geophysics or geochemistry or both is likely required. However, neither discipline seems able to get engaged in pushing their discipline outside of quite narrow boundaries, maybe for fear of being branded a purveyor of 'voodoo science'. If there is a technological answer, we also need to ask the question if we have enough innovative people to fuel the idea chain? Groups engaged in "pure" geophysical R&D are very few but this is where innovation or looking at what others are doing in related fields, can contribute a huge amount of additional resources. However, we need 'scouts' who can recognize these ideas/concepts/approaches and facilitate to bring these ideas into the exploration space. If new ideas can be brought to old problems, the results can be impressive. I attached a piece (After Billion-Barrel Bonanza, BP Goes Global with Seismic Tech.pdf) that came out earlier this year about a new means to process seismic data that seems to have transformed the value of this information. This in a industry that has spent huge sums of money over decades and yet major advancements are still possible. An interesting companion piece was sent to me by a colleague that cited the French oil firm Total had made a major investment in a new super computer as part of their strategy to help find more oil faster. A second branch to the idea of defining the better deposits sooner is invest more effort to utilize the data we have. One observation I can make after 20 years consulting and working on literally 1000s of projects for 100s of companies is that a large amount of the survey data acquired is only ever partially assessed and very often only in the most mechanical way, very often will little or no consideration of the actual deposit model that applies to the survey in question. Whether such data ever gets assessed is never certain; quite often old surveys even if never assessed are deemed to have 'expired' and groups would rather acquire a entirely new data set as this makes from more appealing press releases. A proposal is suggested that for every $1 spent on data that $0.15 be spent on the assessment of this data and this cost be accredited for assessment value at twice the money spent ($0.30) if a group separate from the survey company undertakes the assessment. This would help insure that an group independent of the survey company assess that data and provides the client with what more likely will be an impartial assessment of the data. So to improve the quality of the deposits the industry has to assess, we need either to develop or find better discovery technology or we need to make better use of the data we acquire. As the MAC article suggests, continuing on the current path is not sustainable. Ken http://mining.ca/resources/mining-facts<http://mining.ca/resources/mining-facts> https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/business/oil-group-total-hopes-new-supercomputer-will-help-it-find-oil-faster-and-more-cheaply-323449/<https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/business/oil-group-total-hopes-new-supercomputer-will-help-it-find-oil-faster-and-more-cheaply-323449/> https://gcaptain.com/after-billion-barrel-bonanza-bp-goes-global-with-seismic-tech/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Gcaptain+%28gCaptain.com%29&goal=0_f50174ef03-2b9514b956-169911317&mc_cid=2b9514b956&mc_eid=f922026fb5<https://gcaptain.com/after-billion-barrel-bonanza-bp-goes-global-with-seismic-tech/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Gcaptain+%28gCaptain.com%29&goal=0_f50174ef03-2b9514b956-169911317&mc_cid=2b9514b956&mc_eid=f922026fb5> 2019-Condor's 20th Anniversary Condor Consulting, Inc St 150 2201 Kipling St Lakewood CO 80215 USA T: 303-423-8475 Condor North Consulting St 1112 1030 West Georgia St Vancouver BC V6E 2Y3 T: 604-630-8334 E: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> C: 303-520-5732 Skype-ken.witherly1 www.condorconsult.com<http://www.condorconsult.com/>
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