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Nick Cook, President of Mawson Resources shares insight into how they are using Seequent Solutions in their day to day business to help manage five drill rigs.

This presentation was recorded at PDAC 2020.

Overview

Speakers

Nick Cook
President – Mawson Resources

Duration

17 min

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Video Transcript

[00:00:01.297]
(upbeat music)

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<v ->And what we want to give you is a demonstration</v>

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of some of the tools that Seequent uses

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and the tools that we use in our day-to-day business.

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So from the start of this year

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we’ve had five drill rigs going

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and now we’ve got two rigs going

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and we want to talk about the process,

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how we go and actually manage that.

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And hopefully live here will actually work.

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So if you see me run over to the bar,

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then you’ll know how it’s going but let’s see.

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So first up the tools that we are going to look at is

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Leapfrog and Leapfrog Central.

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And I don’t know if you know

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but now the dongles have been recently got rid of this year.

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So for us in a business that works around the world,

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we actually get 24 hours use of a single seat

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by being able to log out and somebody in Australia

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can log back into the same seat.

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So that’s a real bonus in terms of our view of the world,

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as long as you remember to log out.

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So here’s our upfront screen

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when we’re logged into the system.

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And you might see up there,

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it says it was updated on the third,

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which I think is actually today.

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So what we’re going to do for a start is we’re going to download

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the current file that was worked on

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during the last eight hours in Finland.

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And then we’ll come back to that.

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So first up, all we actually have to do,

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if we’re logged into the internet is double click on this

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and it will download the project.

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Now it downloads not all of the project

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because this project is actually a 1.4 gigabytes.

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And so it looks at the projects that I’ve already downloaded

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and will only up update what’s required.

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And you’ll see our staff in Finland has been very good

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down the right hand side and have written the metadata

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as to what we’ve actually done here

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on each update of the file.

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So it’s already at 19%.

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So what do we do on a daily basis?

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Well, we have five drill rigs going

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and they run 24 hours a day.

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And so the drill core gets delivered

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at around seven o’clock in the morning.

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And the guys come in and strangely for Australians,

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the first thing that happens is you unfreeze the drill core

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because learning about putting water on frozen drill core

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was the first experience for me in Finland.

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And we produce a quick log

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and it’s actually quite a simple quick log.

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We have just a few codes that we use,

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and that quick log is made just as a CSV file.

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And there’s a couple of real advantages with that.

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It’s easy to copy and paste

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and we run a simple little notion system

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to describe each hole and that allows us to compare the data

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around the world.

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Now the hole I’m largely talking about is,

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it’s called number 213,

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we had the last assay back at 2:00 a.m on Thursday morning,

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we published our press release on Friday and it includes,

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I think it’s 17.7 meters at 3.8 grams

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followed by another six meters at 9.2 grams of gold.

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And it was drilled around 100 meters or to 120 meters

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below the previous resource.

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So we’re happy about that side of the world.

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So we produce a quick log almost straight away.

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And the advantage with producing a quick log

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is that we can actually go straight into Leapfrog

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and we can go refresh on that CSV file.

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So five minutes after the quick log is finished,

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it goes in, updates the log in our Leapfrog project

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and we can see in 3D what’s going on with our drill holes,

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because that’s particularly important

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obviously when you’re trying to manage five drill rigs.

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So this is all being downloaded here.

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Now, our main logging system is called MX Deposit

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and David’s the guru over in the background there

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with an almost empty glass of beer.

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And we went and reviewed lots of different systems

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when we went to this and we actually liked this

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because of the flexibility in design.

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And we have all sorts of our own survey sheets

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from standard header sheets here.

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When you log the samples, put in all the notes

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and reproduce an Excel file

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that then goes straight for the lab.

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We have alteration, key minerals,

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and all of those things can be exported straight out of here

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and used very quickly within Leapfrog.

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Now, to give you an idea,

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so here’s our sample results column.

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And if I just go regional,

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that will get rid of that filter,

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will get rid of some of the other material,

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some of the other…

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To go to the far side to gold.

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So I might scroll down here

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and see if I can find some gold in this drill hole.

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So that for example is a set of assays.

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Now, we received the lab sheets back

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and it took me two minutes to match it up in the database.

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So one of the key things that people such as me

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find very useful is if I get the samples

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during the middle of the night

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when the Finnish guys aren’t working,

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I can load the assays straight in here, check for fails,

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and within minutes I have all the data in the system

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ready for use elsewhere.

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So this side of the business has been particularly good.

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And now we’re moving towards time

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where we’re actually going to start collecting different data

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on our drill holes,

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including hydrogeology and things like that.

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So we will simply make another table here within this

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that will record hydrogeological details

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for the drill holes.

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So being able to build the sort of system you want

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and assign color charts is particularly useful.

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So these guys, they won’t be logging now

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because it’ll be middle of the night,

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but I could be logged in here and you can see them

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actually writing the logs live on the system

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in our core shed.

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So lots of flexibility,

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we really like this part of the system.

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Here we go, Leapfrog here is,

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over here you will see it says version two,

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so we can open up the project file.

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So we all want to be able to control the drilling

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and make sure we know where we’re going.

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Now, one key thing that isn’t related to Seequent

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is we actually use this PAL 1000 technique,

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which takes a kilo sample for our gold

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rather than fire assay.

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So that kilos sample goes into a pot

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with oxidizing agent with cyanide and steel balls,

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rolls around for now and then gets a flame AIS.

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And we typically get a five day turnaround

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on our gold assays, far cheaper than fire assay.

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And that of course is exceedingly useful

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when you’ve got madly going with five drill rigs

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because you don’t often see the gold

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and it really helps to control

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on where you’re actually going.

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So when you see us start producing results

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that are a week after the drill hole

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or two weeks after the drill hole,

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that’s because we have that sort of capability

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with the lab just a couple of kilometers

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or 200 kilometers down the road.

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So here we have two big files,

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so it’ll take a little while to open up

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but the thing about doing a quick log and having a system

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such as this, I haven’t actually seen

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how this was going to open up because it’s a brand new file.

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So bear with me a sec.

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I push D and those look like gold intersections.

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Okay, we’ll check the, yes.

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So this, you will see over on the right hand side here,

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this says ranked SI export.

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So what we’ve actually done with that David from MX

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is design our own priority lists for exporting data.

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So if we have a fire assay that would get priority

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over a different gold technique,

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or if we have ICP EMS for acid digest,

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that might have a greater degree of certainty

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over another method.

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So when we export the data,

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we just get one set of data per element,

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which is particularly useful because it saves you

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going through marking around with all the columns.

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Now, if I was going to update the quick log,

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go over to the right here,

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I would simply go to the right

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and push the right hand button here and go, if I can see it.

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Reload data and that would go to the same quick log file

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that the guys use.

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So as soon as they’ve finished the CSV file,

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somebody can push that

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and straight away the same color tables get applied.

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So we have that 3D data available to us immediately.

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And as soon as the guys upload the project,

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I get to see it in Australia when I wake up

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or they go to sleep, whichever.

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So this whole integration across the system

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and across the platforms has been really useful.

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Now in the background of course,

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there’s other parts to the system,

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including the Central browser.

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Now we started the season with drilling

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a nearly 900 meter hole from…

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We had a restricted area and we drilled from outside

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and we use directional drilling.

[00:10:58.320]
Now we put down the Reflex IQ sprint tool.

[00:11:02.230]
And the advantage from that with five rigs

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and two different companies is that

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we actually rented the tool

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and it was shared across all the companies.

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And that tool basically comes straight out,

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is matched with Bluetooth, with the data in the IMDEX Hub.

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And as soon as you approve it, you can load that across

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to the browser, to the Central browser here.

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And the advantage with that is,

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and you can see the bends, for example in this hole here.

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And so we would get the survey data,

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it will be uploaded straight away,

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and we could straight away work out

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what to do with the drill hole.

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Now, geologists are often kidding themselves

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as to actually knowing where the mineralization is,

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but we at least did have a target where we were aiming for.

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And so we were heading down to what is essentially

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the extensions of the mineralization at this prospect here.

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Now, this is just the quick logs in here

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with a couple of drill holes,

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but the advantage with Central

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is you can make that as simple as possible.

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So if you want to see stuff straight away and quickly online

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while the drilling is going on

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and while the surveying is going on,

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it’s much, much easier to control.

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So going back here, we have for example, our resource area,

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these are resource blocks that were in

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from the 2018 resource.

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And what we’ve been trying to do is extend the drilling

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basically down plunge

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and pretty much double the size of the resource.

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And this tool, Leapfrog has been absolutely fantastic

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for basically how we operate.

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We are now at the stage of going back to all the data

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and going back to build our 3D model

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and update the resources.

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So we will be handing to our resource people,

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who are external consultants, a 3D model of what we expect

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the geology to look like and what we expect

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the gold distribution to look like.

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And one thing about this and having Edge

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and the other tools in here is we can actually do it

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all ourselves because I don’t think anybody

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sort of trust the situation where you just hand over

[00:13:39.160]
all the data to a resource consultant and expect them

[00:13:42.710]
to get it right without geological input.

[00:13:45.570]
And one of the key things here is that

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we’ve been able to do this.

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Now, in many ways I’m a traditional geologists,

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so having all these flashed stuff on a computer

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is not really how I work,

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because if you look at my notebook

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there’s a lot of hand drawn sections

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and we actually liked drawing sections by hand.

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So we really encourage our staff still to do some of that,

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to build the section and to think about them

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but then we scan them and actually put them

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into the system here.

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So we have lots and lots of hand-drawn system stuff in here

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to just check how we’re going in terms of,

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I suppose a sense of realism for the geology in the system.

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Other things you can do in these tools are to,

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for example, if anybody here is a fan of this geochemistry,

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where are we?

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There’s ioGas, you can for example get data out of…

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How many people here use ioGas?

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So Dave, Laurie and the guys at IMDEX, Reflex,

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whatever you want to call them,

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have built what I consider the best geochemical tool

[00:14:58.680]
in the business.

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And the real plus with this is you can think about

[00:15:03.780]
what minerals you are seeing.

[00:15:05.390]
You can build the geochemistry,

[00:15:07.370]
you can circle the populations

[00:15:11.580]
and that’s all very well because,

[00:15:13.210]
so what, you don’t really care

[00:15:14.690]
if dots are green or blue or anything.

[00:15:17.120]
But the thing we do all the time

[00:15:18.850]
is having created that dataset,

[00:15:21.330]
we actually export it back into our 3D model.

[00:15:25.610]
So we’ll export our ioGas

[00:15:28.000]
and there is a link that allows you to do that live.

[00:15:31.520]
Maybe we’re too cheap and we don’t want to pay for that link

[00:15:34.200]
because it only takes us a few seconds to do it manually,

[00:15:37.450]
but we export that data out

[00:15:39.080]
and produce three dimensional models

[00:15:41.180]
on our theoretical geochemistry.

[00:15:43.220]
So we might have a tool, for example,

[00:15:45.120]
that picks the reduced horizon in our Seequent,

[00:15:48.660]
which is critical for the gold mineralization.

[00:15:51.800]
It takes us about two minutes to export that data

[00:15:55.280]
out of ioGas and to put it straight into Leapfrog.

[00:15:59.960]
And from there you have tools

[00:16:01.530]
where you can actually start comparing it

[00:16:03.390]
and build 3D models from that data.

[00:16:09.440]
So I suppose that’s the story in a nutshell.

[00:16:12.920]
So at the moment, we are excited in showing

[00:16:18.180]
our dual core over there.

[00:16:19.920]
We’ve got about 2000 meters to go.

[00:16:23.085]
I’m not sure whether it’s going to be

[00:16:23.918]
our most successful season, but in faint terms

[00:16:27.320]
we’ve putting in 30 kilometers of drilling

[00:16:29.380]
since we upgraded our resource

[00:16:32.220]
when we produced our first resource in December, 2018

[00:16:36.400]
and we’re looking to double it or more,

[00:16:38.190]
but let’s see how we go with the modeling

[00:16:40.780]
in the next short while.

[00:16:42.490]
So if you’ve got questions of me

[00:16:45.070]
about how we use it practically,

[00:16:46.750]
or the Seequent guys and MX and the Reflex guys,

[00:16:52.130]
there’s Christian here from IMDEX or Reflex,

[00:16:55.940]
or one of those names,

[00:16:58.040]
AMC, depending on what day it is.

[00:17:01.020]
By all means, ask them how will these tools integrate

[00:17:03.930]
because it has made our life, I suppose, predictable

[00:17:07.970]
and much easier in terms of operation and really allows us

[00:17:12.040]
to not spend too much drilling in the wrong place

[00:17:14.880]
because we can see the 3D controls

[00:17:17.530]
on the gold mineralization.

[00:17:20.280]
So, beer or any questions?

[00:17:23.370]
One of the two, thank you.

[00:17:25.350]
(applauding)