In the early 90's the all in cost for a remote drill program (you can't get there by road) was around $100 per meter all in. 'ALL IN' meant drilling, assays, staff, camp, flights EVRYTHING. No we are looking at costs $300 per meter or more for the same type of program. Costs have went way up and are moving further as there appears to be no let up to exploration activity worldwide.

At the same time the success rate in finding economic deposits (AKA Mines) has dropped significantly. Mines have got much harder to find. Deposits tend to be smaller. So with triple the costs and say half the finds (I don't have a real statistic) you would look at 6 times the costs of discovery and about 4 times the capital costs to develop. The result is that the price paid per contained resource is going up fast in dollars terms (due to metal prices) but also as a % of the deposit value.

There has been a lot written about Senior Mining companies buying into deposits rather then explore for them as it is cheaper in the long run. As demand for these finds go up the cost to the seniors goes up until some sort of expenditure/risk/reward equilibrium is met. As miskealp1 stated the analysts valuation models are not keeping up, but I do see that they are adapting.

So what we see is that with the DE1 discovery the ROF area is being recognized as a large Virgin Unexplored land holding that has been proven to contain serious mineralization. There are very few of those type of areas left in the world (hence the reason that the discovery rate is down). Throw enough money, resources and smart people at the problem and there will be other discoveries. In the ROF we have lots of that going on. The question will be at what point does a major move to stake its position in the ROF as a move against the other senior competitors.

In the meantime the drills will turn, assays will come in and one day you will open your trading account and try to figure out why your trading balance has an extra ZERO in it. Is it another anomaly hit, depth expansion, a JV partner’s discovery or a move by a senior?

.... Been There