The 9 Red Flags in Exploration Investing (Roland Gotthard)

There’s plenty of alpha to be made — and money to be saved — by learning from a sceptical geologist. So we interviewed one.

Roland Gotthard has built a reputation for calling out poordisclosure practices, guiding investors on what to watch for, and recognising when companies get it right.

In this episode, Roland shares the lessons he’s learned fromyears of scrutinising company reporting and navigating the grey areas of themining market.

.……………

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Introduction

00:46 Why JORCWTF?

02:25 The geologist skillset

08:20 The internal pressure of being a geo

12:40 Influences on bad disclosure

17:50 The small cap dilemma

21:34 The directors special

27:33 More red flags

31:26 Nuances to the directors special

39:04 Why maps

41:25 Metallurgy red flags

51:00 What to infer from Geotech work

54:36 Yellow flags

1:02:58 Never reported drilling

1:03:33 Being an outsider

1:04:50 Why continue JORCWTF

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PARTNERS

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• Travis Ricciardo: ⁠@TRAVmoneyofmine⁠⁠

• Jonas Dorling: ⁠@JDmoneyofmine⁠⁠

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DISCLAIMER

All information in this podcast is for education andentertainment purposes only and is of general nature only.

Please ensure you read our ⁠full disclaimer⁠.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
People use dork as this sort of magic term.
It's dork compliant. Dork's just a a code of telling
people what you've done. Roland, you're an industry
outsider. Do you agree with that?
Yeah, more or less, JD. We're at risk of saying a lot of

(00:21):
things in this episode that should not be said.
What role it is. Welcome to money of mine.
Thank you so much joining us. You're prolific in what is, I
guess your column on LinkedIn called Joke WTF.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Where? Yeah.
I I, I I feel like people kind of know you just because your
posts have been absolutely everywhere.

(00:44):
What what was the inspiration toto start writing Joke WTF And
what is it? Well, yeah, I, I'm a bit of a
mat nerd. And so one part of the the joke
code is that you have to have a map of your drilling and it has
to have coordinates on it. But I was looking at a map and,

(01:05):
and it didn't have coordinates on it and, and it had some
drilling, but it didn't have allthe drilling.
And I was like, but that's pretty lazy.
You know, I'm like, what the fuck's going on here?
How, how did you, how can you not put in a decent map?
It's 5 minutes in map info or, or 5 minutes in QG.
That's right. So I was like, oh, come on,
guys, you can put in a better map, blah, blah, blah, blah,

(01:27):
blah, hashtag joke, WTF. And yeah, a couple of my mates
were just like, joke WTF? Yeah, good one, good one.
You know, And yeah, I've been pretty vocal on LinkedIn for a
couple of years. You know, I guess I started
calling out a few errors in the and a few misconceptions in the

(01:50):
Pilbara nugget thing that happened back there were
watermelon seeds. Yeah, yeah.
And some of it was, you know, maps that were wrong.
Some of it was like, you know, the sampling theory behind
nugget seeds was never going to work.
You know, you can't sample it toa you know, to to convince most

(02:12):
people that you could get a jokeresource.
And so therefore, what were people doing?
But yeah, the the wits 2 point Ohype took over and I was one of
the few people it was just like,come on guys, cool your jets.
And it's, and it's this job WQF is kind of morphed into, you
know, geologists have a skill set which is to be able to
disentangle the announcements that are put out by exploration

(02:35):
companies all the time. And for some reason, not many
people other than geologists ever learn the skill set to be
able to disentangle those announcements.
And what you do is you use your geologist skill set, you
disentangle them and explain to the layman maybe how things have
been polished or, or or maybe some areas have been LED there.
And maybe they're maybe they're accidental, or maybe they're
they're not accidental. Yeah.
It's a transparency thing. Yeah, yeah.

(02:57):
So the, I mean, I guess we should go over like what, what
the dork code is for a for a start, you know, like what is
the dork in dork WTF? Because the WTF, you know, it's
self-explanatory, but you know, the, the dork code is a
professional code. And as, as a competent person,
you have to have enough experience in the subject matter

(03:21):
that you are talking about. If it's geology, geotechnical,
metallurgy, engineering, there'sa whole bunch of of things you
can resource geology that you can be an expert in or not,
right? I, I, you'll never see me
publishing a resource because I suck at stats.
I'm a real geologist, I'm bad atmaths, right?

(03:43):
So you have to do your time, youhave to do five years minimum in
order to qualify to become a competent person.
But then when you're a competentperson, the standard under the
joke is that you would feel comfortable defending yourself
against your peers. Now one thing is like who is
defending themselves in the industry against their peers on

(04:06):
a day-to-day basis? No one, right?
I'm the peer that now people have to defend themselves, you
know, And you know, a couple of times down the pub, other people
are like, oh, I've been agonizing over a announcement
because I don't want you to joke.
WTF me. And some of it's for, you know,
for real. And some of it's a bit of a

(04:27):
joke, but that's the joke idea of competence is that you have
enough experience to be competent, whatever that means,
and that you feel would feel comfortable defending yourself.
Now, that's very similar to likea thesis or your own like
science project at school. And so one of the things like I

(04:47):
like to do is go into the table one and Table 2.
And that is literally like a high school science, you know,
methods, results, conclusions. The methods are in the table
one. They're hidden at the back of
the announcement, right? But that's how they have
generated the data that goes into the announcement.

(05:08):
Now in the real world on the ASX, your competent person has
to sign off on that. It has to in theory be at least
an E signature on APDF or if preferably a a wet signature on
a on an actual declaration at that the company should be
keeping in a folder somewhere oron a on a hard drive somewhere.

(05:30):
Now I know for a fact that it doesn't always happen, that one
of my mates, and I won't say whowas just driving down the road
in the Bush and he gets phoned up by a director or a company
secretary, whatever it was. And they're like, oh, did you
see today's announcement? We put you in as the competent
person right now. That's that's a breach of the

(05:54):
Jolt code. It's a breach of the ASX.
But it happens, right? Competent people are working in
especially at the junior end in two or three person operations
that where where it's like I wasanother client this morning and
it's literally a hole in the wall office in West Perth with
three disks. That's the managing director,

(06:16):
the expiration manager and then they're asking me some
questions. And so the way it should work is
that you do your work and you provide the competent person, if
he's not doing it this himself, with supporting documents to
underlie the market information that they're communicating.

(06:37):
So behind every drill announcement, there should be a
database filled with informationfrom drill logs.
And that the part of the jerk isthat it's done in a professional
manner. So what?
So you know that people are logging the core properly, You
know that they're marking the meters properly, they're doing
the core blocks properly, they're measuring the the

(07:00):
recovery properly. And someone has signing off on
that saying it has been done properly and is fit for use in
the announcement in the form andmanner in which it's
communicated. Now that's the theory is that
there is a, there is actually some information behind this.
There's a report behind it. Someone who is a competent
person or under the direction ofa competent person has done the

(07:23):
work and someone signs off on it.
And that's the little disclaimerthat you've got in your ASX
announcement. And and that is then put into
the table one and Table 2. And it's like bearing your dirty
laundry. Sometimes the methods and
sometimes the work that goes into something is just bad or

(07:44):
misguided or there's an error inthe method or it hasn't been
properly put into the table one and table two.
People love not applicable. You know, that one the other day
was what's the drill recovery indiamond hole?
Not holes, not applicable. I'm like, mate, you do get core

(08:04):
loss, all right? The drillers put blocks in the
wrong way around. People drop trays of core and
just stuff it back in and they don't tell you.
Now, are you saying that none ofthat ever happened in your drill
program? That's apparently what the CP
signs off at. Can you talk a bit more about
some of the pressures that you sort of might sort of see when

(08:25):
you seek about your mates who might be worried that you'll
call them out on some of their work knowing that they're going
to give it their their all to doa good job?
And one thing that I've noticed a lot recently is people are
recycling the table one and table twos from one announcement
to another and sometimes from one company to another.
There might be the same consultant working for two
companies and someone gets an assay result in for some drill

(08:47):
holes. So what do you got to do to make
an announcement, especially if it's price sensitive?
Well, let's say it's some visible gold or massive
sulfides, right? The, the drill, the, let's say
it's a core drill. The core has been drilled.
It's put in a box that geologists rocks up at 9:00 AM
in the morning. And I've done this myself, rock

(09:08):
up at 6:00 AM in the morning andthere's a meter of massive
sulphide. And it's a big deal for the
company. It's the only thing the
company's done in two years. It's drilled this hole because
it took that long to get the hole drilled for whatever
reason. And all of a sudden, you know,
you take a photo and you send iton an SMS to your boss while we
just hit massive. And, and that the ASX, I think

(09:31):
believes that the company can instantaneously almost or within
the space of a trading halt, which is 3 days.
Well, the company should go intoa trading halt and then you've
got a three day period to get everything together.
Now, if you've just drilled the stick of core, you don't know
exactly how deep it is until youput that on the rack and you

(09:53):
measure it. And then you've got, because
it's a quite sensitive bit of information and you've got 3
days of time pressure on you, you've got, there's a lot of
pressure to get this turned around quickly in the field.
And then that's got to go back to the office and the
exploration manager's got to, he's trying to compile a, a, a,
a, a story around it, trying to put together a cross section and

(10:17):
a map and, you know, and a tableone and a table 20.
How did you cut it? Have you even cut it yet?
How did you log it? What, what's the assay methods
we're going to use? Have you done the QAQC samples
according to things or etcetera,etcetera.
So if a competent person and a company, which is, let's say a

(10:39):
small company, a couple of people isn't prepared for this
eventuality, it's an, it is bedlam, it's chaos.
To put this together within the,the time frame that the ASX
gives you 3 day suspension and it can, it can happen without
any warning. You don't even think you're
going to hit something and then bang, you've got a, a chunk of

(11:00):
VG and, and that's where you also get into, you know, the,
you know, sometimes you hit VG and there's no announcement.
And one of the questions would be why?
You know, someone has had to decide if it's price sensitive
or not. And that's the board.
The board also sets the, the direction of, of like the

(11:22):
communication strategy. How do who's deciding what is
defined as high grade and world beating and world class, right.
I mean, to use one example, Wycliffe Minerals the other week
drilled a hole at Danvers and they said it was the best copper

(11:43):
result in the last 50 years. And, and I of course commented
on that because I was like, is it, is it though?
You know, like, it's good, but is it right?
So, but yeah, so there's this interface between the guys on
the coalface and the competent person.
He needs to get the documentation properly done.

(12:05):
And that often is incomplete at the time of press and also the
CP and the board. And, you know, there are a lot
of companies which would be, say, pumping out a drilling
announcement every week or two. And they're they're they're
clearly, you know, trying to getsome traction in the market, to

(12:25):
put it one way, or just pumping the shit out of it in the
another way, right, Depending onon how news.
Flow. Yeah, well, news flow exactly.
Keeping the ducks fed. Continuous disclosure.
Exactly. These are the but is it?
What? What influences bad disclosure?
I think that there's one part's laziness, right?

(12:49):
It takes a lot of effort to put a really good solid piece of
work together. You know, like to to finish a
resource, for instance, your maiden resource on a gold
project that could be two or three years worth of work.
Now you need to release something before you know what

(13:10):
is there, right. So the draw code's got
expiration targets and, and you know, that can be very wibbly
wobbly and, and I love looking at expiration targets.
And so you, you sort of go, yeah, there's a, it's a
judgement. And I'm, I'm not saying anyone's
particularly wrong, but we've got a, you know, it's worth

(13:31):
asking a question. And these are public releases,
by the way, right? If you're not willing to have
someone question you in public, don't put it out in public.
If you have to by law make sure that you've done dotted the IS
and crossed the T's and you knowit.
It's up to the board to make that decision as well.
Set as a corporate strategy about how are we going to

(13:53):
communicate with our shareholders?
What are what are what are we trying to do here?
Are we trying to get the share price up?
I mean, yeah, that's how people make money in the junior end of
the market mostly is just pumping and dumping to put it
one way, or trying to get the share price up to raise some
money to reduce dilution. Let's go drilling.

(14:13):
Let's one thing that I think is funny is companies, which are
gold companies getting into nickel and then getting into
rare earths and flavour of the month.
Loving gallium at the moment. Love gallium, best metal in the
planet and it's going to be usedfor defence industries.

(14:34):
If you ask one guy aerospace, ifyou ask the next guy, all you've
got to do is like, you know, andone thing I say is like, you can
tell when gallium's hot, who's serious is because they actually
go and explore for it. But you can also tell who isn't
because all of a sudden everyone's a gallium explorer
and all they've done is go into their database and sort by
gallium. I mean, and then they go, oh,

(14:57):
we've identified gallium in, in bauxite, for instance.
You know, here's the hot tip. Gallium and aluminium have a set
ratio and it very, very rarely differs from that.
So if you've got a lot of aluminium, you'll have a lot of
gallium. Now what does that mean in
realistic terms in, in terms of are we going to be, are these

(15:17):
guys mining or are they just mining the market?
Mining the market. That's cute.
Try mining with margins. They they now industry.
You need more than just good intentions in a drill rig.
You need power. Reliable, affordable, ready when
you need it. If you're serious about mining,
that's what you need. Matt, I don't know about you,
but for me, Crossbound, your energy comes to mind.

(15:39):
These guys are delivering solar,they're delivering wind.
They are delivering battery solutions for mines all across
the globe. They built these hyper power
stations all over Africa where power is notoriously unreliable
mate. And now the kicking goals all
over Australia. Mines across the country.
Gets better though mate. Here's the bit.
And this is the thing that CF OSout there will love.

(16:00):
You don't even need to pay for it upfront.
Build own operate mate. They will take on the CapEx for
you. All you have to worry about is
plugging in that clean reliable energy.
CFO gets to keep his bonus mate,serious miners use cross
boundary energy and the rest. They're just mining the market.
Tim Taylor's the man JDI shook his hand last week and I've got
an electric shock. That's how much of A power guru

(16:22):
Tim is. Head to cross boundary.com.
Get in touch with Tim Taylor if you're serious about power and
serious about mining. Go CBA.
I, I love long sections because it's, it's kind of this
interface between science and art.
There is an art to making a decent long section and you

(16:44):
know, a long section can, if it's done properly, display the
shoot direction in a, in a mine.But there's, there's so many
different ways of doing it and you see these long sections turn
up and, and it's just clearly, you know, the guy's got his
pencil and he's just artistically putting in a little

(17:06):
wibble and a wobble. And, you know, anyone whose
name's Justin doesn't like me because I keep picking on their
long sections. But but yeah, like, I think why
would you justify there being a wiggle in there?
What is there a fault? Is there a structure or is it
just that you've got the, the Max gold down hole and then you
want to make a nice solid contour around it and then just

(17:29):
Chuck an open arrow. The the, the open arrow is, is
always, it's always open it right.
So yeah, these are the some of the the tropes on the ASX that
that people, it's just the way that everyone's communicating in
mining and sometimes there's no real science behind it.
I'm keen to explore these these tropes, but first I want to

(17:51):
address the the, I suppose like the defence of a company is that
their cost of capital is their, their share price.
So they have to promote because they need a low cost of capital
for, you know, future, yeah, future creation that to benefit
all shareholders. So they've got to promote.
But there's this grey line, right between promotion and

(18:13):
dishonest disclosure. There's there's a few things
that I think are black and white, yeah.
And a lot of these are covered in dual code as well.
And, and some of the guidance notes, you know, some of the,
some of the things that that getmisused, for instance, would be
portable XRF magic gun. The days before PXRFS were

(18:36):
horrific because you'd have to wait for the assays.
And back then, obviously you could get results within a week
or two weeks. So it wasn't a terrible wait
like, you know, 2022 when it was8 weeks for assays, right.
So the, the PXRF guns are great for characterising rocks, but
when you get a chunk of massive sulfide, your eye's going to be

(19:00):
drawn to the shiniest bit and you're going to ZAP it and it's
going to come back and, and it'sgoing to be high grade.
Now this is where you, you startgetting into that whole like
what, what's a, what informationis price sensitive.
And it's like, well, you've got to stick a core and it's got a
nice little yellow bit of chalk of pyrite.
If I ZAP that and I get 8%, thatthen is, you know, almost, you

(19:25):
almost justify having to make anannouncement of about an hour,
it's 8%. So you ZAP it and you've got a
massive sulfide. You get up to 8% copper, bam,
out it goes. And you know, it's like they cut
it. And there's one example recently
where they had up to I think it was 6 1/2% golden deeps.

(19:48):
And you know, the, the draw codecomes, falls apart here because
you can just put a disclaimer inthere and you can describe the
methods and everything like that, but they cut it and it was
like .15 or something. So it, it can be extremely
unrepresentative sampling. And then the, the, the company's
got to have a a bit of maturity,I think in, in that grey line

(20:11):
about saying, well, OK, we're not actually assaying.
This, this isn't an assay to report.
It's like someone's just zapped a piece of rock and we know
there's copper because we, we saw the copper, we zapped the
copper. Let's just wait, let's be mature
and, and step back, let the process run its course.
You know, I understand companiesneed to get the share price up,

(20:34):
but, but this is a chicken and egg thing.
It's like, are you getting the share price up by the result of
work or are you doing work to get the share price up?
The and there's two different things there.
One is, for instance, yeah, directed specials, drilling
holes down the dip in the mineralisation.
It's called the directed specialbecause back in the 80s people

(20:55):
would drill down the the dip in mineralisation to generate and
the share price goes up and the performance rights best.
Good old days. Yeah, not so good.
It's the good modern days, right?
So I just. Bet the title of our daily
newsletter. So, you know, people are still

(21:17):
drilling director specials even like a couple of weeks ago, not
to harp on white Cliff, nickel, white Cliff metals these days,
but yeah, they drilled a hole which was down deep.
Now there's. A quick way, your average punter
can sort of suss that out. Well, this is where where I I

(21:37):
did have a bit to say on, On theWhite Cliff announcement.
And like a lot of these things are complicated multi element
sort of problems is that, you know, they picked up a project
and it came with old 1960s drilling and some younger

(21:58):
drilling AT272011. So sometimes you can't find the
records of the old drilling and you know, it's been drilled, but
there's no records or the records are very poor.
They're poorly described. There's no methodology, right?
That all should go in the table one and table two.
We couldn't find all of the data.

(22:20):
We're not sure what the methods were.
And you see that a lot. They should, the, the drill
holes should be on the map, right?
They, they should be on a map and they were on some maps from
Wycliffe, but not all maps. They should.
If you drill a, a hole on a section and it's in this case 15

(22:43):
meters away from the nearest historical hole, if it's not on
the section, you've, you've sortof you're clipping the view of
your section to exclude it for areason, right?
So, and I'm like, hang on, they've got a hole which is
drilling the opposite direction to all the other holes.
Why is that? Are they testing for an

(23:03):
alternative dip on it? Well, let's have a look at the
other holes and you can compile that data and it takes a little
bit of time, but you realize that the, the ore body or the
mineralization, I should say, dips one way they've drilled
down it and they should have reasonably, I would say not

(23:24):
drilled that way because they they would know it was down dip.
So what, how did that happen? I'm not sure I, I can only
speculate, right? But that that's what I'm sort of
doing is like going. But the share price flew.
It flew. Well, yeah, because if the.
Ambitions were to to create short term.
Hire the best result in 50 yearsit.
Worked and there was a cap raiseoff the back of it and it's

(23:47):
repeat that's. Just coincidence, isn't it?
Yeah. So, but yeah, like the other,
the bigger question is like, is this the behaviour of a company
that's going to be mining or is it a company that's mining the
the stock market? So I'm not sure it's early days,
but yeah, you, I think, you know, punters need the, I think

(24:10):
your your average taxi driver, for instance, or Uber driver
these days who's taken a punt and gold's running hot.
How do they know a good gold project from a bad gold project?
Geologists like me can, can lookat at at the whole information
and, and say in WA, I even go diving into way mix right into

(24:32):
the, the government data repository online and pulling in
the old holes, checking them forhow deep the where the gold is.
Old cross sections, old stock market releases.
There. There can be a lot of work that
can, that you might need to do as due diligence.
And, and I know that a lot of people don't do it.
They you know, it, it, it's mobile phone LED stock market

(24:56):
these days. Everyone can be trading on on
their phone and and a few minutes you might miss the the
pump and dump or the the big thethe someone comes out with
massive sulfides you buy and andeverything.
So but yeah, how you need to know what you're doing.
You need to have that knowledge and training and, and 22 decades
of, of time in the trenches of and for some, sometimes some

(25:22):
pretty dodgy places, right, thatI've worked for and, and some
pretty dodgy people that I've worked for who are still, you
know, So, yeah, there's a bit ofbit of like there's an old
veteran knowledge here that I can use to sort of identify a
few things. And it, it just, sometimes it,

(25:43):
you just sort of think that doesn't quite seem 100% legit.
And then you start digging and then you start going into the,
into the geology and, and, and things start, Yeah.
And you get a bit of a feeling. And, and so, you know, sometimes
it's taken me a week or two worth of work to come up with a
few few posts. You know, I did one recently on

(26:06):
a rare earth explorer and big long form article.
And, and that was, that was a lot of digging and researching.
And I know not everyone's got a lot of time to do it, and that's
fair enough, but. 10 The 1010 Breeze, Yeah.
Yeah, 10. Yeah, and and everything.
CRML, yeah. That was a lot of digging.
You do enough digging and at some point you're going to need

(26:28):
ground support. And the ground support guru
Derek Heard of Sandvik Ground Support recently shared this
with us. Your most proud moment.
I mean, you go back to some of the early day things, you know,
working with clients and having some some wins and shared wins
up in like Mount Isa and things like that.
It felt like a partnership working with those team up

(26:48):
there. You know, when I went up there
in 98 to 2002 sort of thing, it really felt like a partnership.
What were you? So what were you actually doing
there? So I was managing a small branch
up there. So we had the depot in town and
we were literally the the vendormanaged system.
So we were delivering product just across the road on trucks.
You know, we were going underground doing the testing.
You really felt part of, you know, that whole ecosystem that

(27:11):
now and eyes and mines were running.
It was really, really great. And you know, we delivered some
big outcomes and at that time there was a number of
improvements going through the the industry, things like resin
bolting and things like that. Being part of driving that
through the industry at that time was really cool.
I hope to love something one dayas much as Derek Kurt loves
ground support. Back to Roland, So in the red

(27:33):
flags list, we've got we've got the directors special in there
and we've got the lack of, you know, historic trillion kind of
mentioned or glossed over kind of disclosed a shine selective
reporting or overly socialized intersections.
What do you mean by this point, Roland?
SO11 recent example and sometimes I just get a bee in my

(27:55):
bonnet about about things. And one of them and for no
particular reason, but was Coonenberry and they were coming
out with you know, 200 plus meters at 1G.
But most of that was a much smaller section of it at very
high grade. And then a lot of what I would

(28:17):
think would be subgrade material.
And then they just average it all out when you report and, and
there's a section in the Table 1data aggregation methods, right?
Is how have you decided what your intersection is?
Is it, are we just going to use everything within this
particular geological unit and just take the lot, right?

(28:38):
So, and that's, that's valid forsome types of ore bodies like
iron ore, you might just go, well, we can't or it might be a
minimum mining width, right? We've got to take it all.
So we're going to average everything between the hanging
wall and the football and that'swhat we're going to report.
And so it becomes 100 metres at .9 or something.

(29:00):
And even though most of it mightbe a couple of metres and that
might be, that might be completely valid.
You know, some of the, the gold industry at the moment's running
into giant mills being fed by lower and lower grade material.
You know, Takula, Sorry Tamula, you know 6,000,000 tonne per
annum point, less than .7 head grade .65 I think it is right?

(29:26):
That'll be miles and miles of .4G and a couple of veins 1 and
twos and threes and fives. Doesn't matter, it all averages
out. We're going to make money.
Who cares? You, you socialise it.
But when you're in exploration and you know, in wars are
relatively small, I'm sure the guys at Canonbury would
disagree, but relatively small sheer hosted granite

(29:52):
mineralisation. And it's got some VG in it, some
visible gold. That's true.
It's got some nice high grade intersections.
That's true. But they're reporting 200
metres, right? So when you actually look at
where the high grade is, it's it, it seems to be all down low.
So the, the question I've, I would have there is like, why do
you need to have a 200 metre intersection?

(30:15):
And the other part about Coonenberry was that they were
drilling it from the east, the north and the South and the
West. So I'm like, no one does that.
I, I know, for instance, I was told that by someone that he got
fired by Ed issues because he's,he suggested drilling a hole the
other way and, and repeat. This is this is a bit of law

(30:35):
that I was told in the industry and and Ed issues apparently
fired this guy for suggesting that he turned the drill around
because that's a sign that you don't know what's going on and
it's A and you've failed have. Some discoveries been made that
way. They have but, but so one of the
one of the things like I, I was like, OK, so they're drilling it
from the, the, the deposit was drilled from the southeast to

(30:58):
the northwest, almost everything.
And then, yeah, Canonbury comes and then they there was a
historical hole drilled from thesouthwest to the northeast and
that had a huge intersection at 3 1/2 grams in it and everything
else was low grade. And yeah, so that needs
answering. That question needs answering.
Why did that one hole drilled ina different way get the get a

(31:21):
massive hit? Is it a fair?
Is it, is it fair? Like I remember with Azure,
right, I think they had put 1 hole kind of down the guts.
But at that point they're actually just testing depth
extension. They didn't know the depth, how
how deep it was at that point intime.
Yeah. And also in nickel, people can
drill down the guts of the ore body or parallel with the ore

(31:44):
body, parallel with the dip as aplatform for electromagnetic
surveys, right. So at spotted coal that was
found spotted coal was a nickel deposit commodity in a in a
channel. I'm not going to pillory myself
on the geology here, but it, it went down, there was a granite

(32:05):
sill and then the idea was that it continued below, but it was
very risky to test. And so they drilled parallel
with the ore body and they just kept drilling beyond that.
And then they put their EM probedown and it lit up a conductor
underneath the granite sill and then they turned around and

(32:26):
drilled it the right way. So there are reasons you do it.
Getting met samples is one reason that you might drill down
the guts of The thing is go well, I need 300 or 600 or or
two tonnes of of samples. You know, I was involved in a
vanadium development company andwe were drilling vertically down

(32:47):
a vertical ore body just to get material for metallurgy, right?
So there are reasons to do it, but it should be apparent, or at
least it should be stated by thecompany that that's what you're
doing rather than drilling down the guts of it, right?
So you want to disclose true width when you're doing
something that feels? Like it's true, width can be
extremely difficult to estimate to estimate early on because

(33:09):
things could be folded and you don't know they're folded.
You know, they might wander in dip and you might be drilling
something that you think is dipping one way and then it
might fold and then dip the other way.
And it's only until you drill enough holes and get a, a solid
model together that you can do true width.

(33:30):
So I, I very, very rarely would,would peg people for not having
true width because once you say true width, well, that's the
truth. And and the truth in geology,
there's, there's never truth. Yeah.
Well, yeah, there's, there's infinite numbers of infinite
colours of blue sky for geos, right.
Yeah. So, so, yeah, there's a lot of
carve outs that that I suppose in a way that carve outs or, or

(33:55):
reasons why people may not include certain information in
disclosures or, or, and the competent person would be
sitting there going, mate, I just can't say that and and they
don't put it in there, but yeah,yeah, going, yeah.
So why did Penenberry have to drill it from north to South and

(34:18):
then east to West and West to east?
They've now apparently settled on One Direction based on the
last couple of holes they've drilled.
But yeah, it's a, it's a valid question to ask because if
you've got to drill a deposit from 4 separate directions, you
know, it's a little, the ghost of Ed issues would be in my ear
going, you're fired. You don't know what's going on.

(34:40):
He's still alive. He's not dead yet.
No, but, but yeah, like so, so like that, that's a good
question is like why? Why are they drilling it from
four ways? Why don't they know there's
historic core? Have they not gone back to the
historic core? They were putting out core
photos. I love core photos.
In fact, I think more companies should put out more core photos

(35:03):
on the. Why?
You can look at it at how someone's laid out their core
tray and look at how they've done their meter marks.
Is the core oriented? You know, is there an Ori line
on it? Are the core blocks OK?
Does it look like the the recovery is good?
The you know, you each tray is 1.1 meters long, so you can

(35:26):
measure it out with you in paintwith by measuring pixels.
You can even go that's, you know, the meter marks are a
meter apart, right? So you can actually look at the
quality of the work that's goingin at the company.
And sometimes it comes up a little short and there's a few
little quibbles that one might have.

(35:47):
But you know, like I've, I've done so much core in my life and
the core photos that I put out, I make sure that core's oriented
properly and that the RE line's visible, the meter marks are
visible, that all the information's on the core.
And you can look at it at someone's core photo on the ASX
and go, these guys are doing really good work, or maybe

(36:11):
they're not right. And so, yeah, that's I guess one
of the problems with disclosure is that what you disclose can
tell as much about you as it tells about the rocks.
You know, how how companies describe their, what they're
doing describes as much their own strategy and philosophy and,

(36:33):
and, and approach and attention to detail, you know, in, in how
they describe the geology. And also, you know, at the other
end of the scale, there might beGreat Western exploration was,
was putting pretty much scientific papers out on the
Urea basin in 20/10/2012, right?It's probably a little bit too

(36:55):
much for the average punter. Great reading for me, gives me
some great ideas. But it's like, why?
Why would you be writing this huge basically thesis on the,
the rocks of an area? It's not well, is it because
you're trying to educate you investors?
There is an ego thing or are youjust so a super rock nerd just

(37:18):
can't shut up about rocks, right?
Just has to write down this new theory.
But it's also the risk there is that you've got, and I don't
want to knock companies for having a a new theory that
you're trying to explore for, right, a model that you're
exploring for, but you run the risk of drilling it and finding
out the models wrong. You know, like safe yesterday

(37:44):
LGM came out and they were drilling some conductive and and
EM bodies out in the Thompson origin and they've got their
theories and they drill the hole.
It was really encouraging results, I thought.
But you know, it, it does run the risk of like you've got an
idea, you go, you test it, the idea is wrong.

(38:05):
And then you have to admit to the ASX and your investors,
yeah, we got it wrong. And and I think that a lot of
companies are afraid that you can't ever be seem to be wrong.
And that's where, you know, the,the old classic buried in the
quarterly happens. You know, people go out, they
drill a hole and there's just dead silence.

(38:27):
And and and it turns up buried at the back end of the quarterly
as a list of drill hole results.And that's another thing as well
is like you have to list your collars, not only put them on a
map, and it has to be an appropriate map and an
appropriate scale. For instance, trig minerals,
recently, the Antimony project in the US, they've got this map

(38:49):
in there for sure. But like there's this tiny
little bit in the middle. That's their project.
And you even if you zoom in, youcan't actually tell what the
geology is, what's going on. You know, it's like, that's not
a good map. Doesn't pass my job.
WTF test? I'm like, come on, guys, you
know, And then they. Bigger maps.
Yeah, and and. Why are maps so important for

(39:11):
disclosure here? Well, we're we're exploring
rocks and rocks and your tenement is your asset.
So you want to be able to demonstrate in a map and it
might be the most over interpreted map ever.
You may it may demonstrate your theories more than reality,
right. But at least put a map out and

(39:34):
you know, it's also the, the punters have paid whoever bought
the shares and the last cat roads, they paid you to drill
holes. So why aren't you putting the
holes on a map so they can tell where the holes were drilled,
right? Why?
Why are they? One thing that that that's I've
been sort of saying a little bitis like, if a company's not

(39:57):
telling you the truth about whatthey're doing.
They're lying to you. Why would you invest in a
company where someone's lying toyou about something, even if
it's a live omission instead of omission?
If someone drills 100 holes and they put 20 on a map and they
maybe don't even release all theholes, right?

(40:18):
Sometimes you see lists of holesfrom one to 100 and there's
twenty holes in the list. Where's the other 80 that were
drilled, right? Did they get any results?
Did they not get any results? Right?
There's no shame in, I would think releasing 100 holes out of
100 holes that got no, no significant results or, or

(40:39):
subgrade or whatever, or only a few get a get a good result.
I mean, that's what you were paid to do is take a a risk on
the project. So, yeah, put them on a map,
make sure the map's got your geology on it so you can, if
we're looking for a nickel, you want to see an ultramatic rock
on the map, put it on the map. If it's not on the map, do you

(41:02):
have ultramatic rocks? What do you got?
What? You know, it's not just because
I'm curious about the geology. I'm like, well, what?
What is the rock you're looking for?
Is it on the map? Can you demonstrate the presence
of it in any way, shape or form?And I know that sometimes it's
all undercover, but there's an Amagnetic anomaly.

(41:22):
Interpret it, put it on the map.A couple of the other red flags
we've got to mention. Firstly, metallurgy or sort of
scant reporting on. Yeah, You know, the mining
industry and mining in general has generally depleted the easy
to get stuff right. So if you're looking at gold

(41:43):
hemi, for instance, like 10 years ago, 20 years ago,
anything that needed pressure oxidation was death.
And now after hemi, everyone's like, Oh yeah, we'll go to
Aphrodite. I think you guys are mentioning
that we'll go to Aphrodite. We'll just Chuck it in a
reactor. It'll, it'll sort out.
Why aren't we doing it? Well, it's the arsenic trioxide

(42:03):
guys. It's, it's death if you've got
death. So, but yeah, that's an
illustration of we're, we're nowdoing more complicated ores,
especially in rare earths and HPA for instance.
There's another and I know I've done HPA and I've done

(42:24):
complicated metallurgy to patents.
Yeah, me. But with, with if we are doing
this work and we've got to put in more effort metallurgically
communicating that that process is not easy.
And, you know, there's 15 years on average between a discovery

(42:47):
and a mine. So why aren't we comfortable
with this? You know, and, and I'm sure that
the, the serious money is comfortable with that.
They understand that and, and they're willing to fund it.
The banks are willing to do it. But like the, the, the junior
companies, which are coming up with a gallium thing like Nimi
with their gallium, it's in a chlorite schist.

(43:08):
What's the metallurgy? I don't know, right.
So let's you know, we've got to understand that metallurgy is an
iterative process. It's a it's science, It's it's
buckets and, and beakers and crushing and floating and, and
you do it once and then you go, oh, we'll tweak the knobs and do

(43:29):
it again. But like, why do we expect it to
be just done? You know Saturn, I've made a
bunch of money out of Saturn recently, but it's in the boring
you'll. Say Ding, Ding, Ding when?
Yeah. And, and they're, they're in the
process and I've done, I've doneAPF, sorry, I did Adfs in WA on
a heat bleach, right? I know what's ahead of them.

(43:51):
And it's a whole lot of columns and it's a whole lot of
agglomeration and so much of it more than than you could imagine
for something that big. And, you know, and they're doing
a great job, but they're just atthe start and the market's not
ready for oh, we did another 50 columns this quarter and that's

(44:13):
all we've done. But you know, the results are.
Yeah, we don't know. But that that's part of the
process. That's part of that 15 years.
Is Saturn in year 13 or is it inyear 10?
We don't know. They don't know.
So, yeah, reporting mineralogy and metallurgy.

(44:36):
And also look, 111 of my bug bears and I call them the magic
pudding, right, is a deposit with a bunch of stuff in it.
And carbonotypes are great. Like Tan Breeze is, is the, is
an example of this zircon rare earths, niobium and also

(44:56):
apparently felspar and fetsonite, right, Which is 3
mineral, three basic minerals, udiolite, felspar and fetsonite.
Now European lithium says that they can make money out of all
three and therefore be no waste.And it's like, OK, that's a
magic pudding. You can take a slice out and
take another slice and another slice and you just everything's

(45:19):
valuable, right? But in reality, that way, yeah,
in order to mine, you have to make waste.
And we understand this in gold because everyone's like, oh, low
strip ratio of two to one or five to one, or what's high
strip ratio, 11 to 118 to one for some of them.
And that and there's always, youknow, grade tonnage and blah,

(45:40):
blah, blah. But in order to produce a ton of
ore, if you've got to produce 5 tons of waste rock, well, that's
waste, right? If you get a ton of ore with 6%
rare earths in it, let's say like at Mount, well, well,
there's still 94% waste stuff that you're not going to sell.
So you have to produce the waste.

(46:01):
So if you turn around and go, well we've got a percent rare
earths and then we've got .5% niobium and we've got 7%
zirconium and we've got some gallium.
They were mentioning gallium. Well, we've got gallium too.
Well of course you do because you've sorted the columns,
right? At some point you've got to ask,

(46:22):
well how much does it cost to get each and everything out?
Is it justified? Is it going to pay it off?
Can it be done? At what point do you throw out
the baby with the bathwater? Right now.
One example here which is which is like really on point is that
deflector was used to be. I worked there one of my first

(46:44):
jobs for this busted arse company called Batavia Mining.
But that was an old gold copper of mine then and it fell over
because the cyanide circuit choked on unrecognised copper or
in the saprolite the the Super gene copper digionite.
It sucked all the the the cyanide out and they went bust

(47:08):
within a couple of weeks. Bang, done they.
Didn't know the copper was there.
No, because it was in the, they knew there was oxide, copper and
they threw that away, but they didn't realize that the
digionite was there because it'sthis anonymous sort of black
stuff, right? And they, they drilled, they got
the gold, they threw that in the, in the CIL plant, stripped

(47:29):
preg robbing. They so robbed, robbed all the
and, and they lost all the gold in circuit and they, and then
they couldn't recover it in time.
They went bust. Batavia was exploring and they
did Batavia and did APFS or scoping study.
And it was something like this was in 2008 ish, right, $300

(47:50):
million. And I forget the name of the
company that that came after it,but it was a guy John Grieve and
and I remember talking with him and he was like, no, it was
before Dory, something like Buccaneer or something.
OK, yeah. And Dory bought them.
Got you. Because what they did was they

(48:12):
they said, well, it's $300 million to get the oxide, copper
and gold and then to go into thefresh sulfide, copper and gold,
which is chalcopyrite with gold by gravity.
But that was split effectively into two components, 150 for the
oxide and super gene plant and 150 for the fresh rock

(48:36):
underground. The oxide plant would have only
made $150 million of cash flow. So it was NPV negative to
recover the transitional oxide. So John Graves said, we're just
going to stockpile it. Forget that malarkey.
We'll stick down on the 150 mil for the fresh rock and the NPV

(48:58):
all of a sudden went up and thenthey got bought by Doray, right.
So this is an example of someonelooking at it and going sure, we
could get everything out, but it's not actually worth getting
everything out. We'll stick to what we what's
going to actually make us money.And that's it's the same for
these carbonatites and and tanberries.

(49:18):
It's like what will make them the most money?
And that's what they've got to do the metallurgy to get the
solution for. You know, if you've got a
copper, zinc, lead, silver, gold, Indium, rhenium, blah
blah, gallium, germanium deposit, right?
And you've done the assays, you've got all of it.
And you just, and then people start talking about

(49:40):
metallurgical work and they, they go, oh, we've got a metal
equivalent. And then they just sum it all
up. And if you don't, and it's, this
is in the draw code and it's also in the listing rules, if
you don't account for the costs of recovery in your middle
equivalency, you're effectively lying.
For instance, germanium, right? It's worth $300,000 a tonne or

(50:04):
something like that. So you go, oh, I've got 6 PPM,
that's 60 bucks right there. Bang, done.
The problem is that the payability is near 0 and and
also not every smelter will takeit out.
So in fact, you've got to send it to China basically.
So yeah, so there's, there's these sort of things get sort of

(50:26):
peddled on the ASX as, oh, we'vegot all of these metals because
we assayed for them and here's ametal equivalent and it's like 7
grams of gold equivalent. And it's like when you look in
the list, it's like .1 grams of gold and all the other stuff,
but they're calling it gold equivalent because gold's what
people want to invest in. And you think, well, that's kind

(50:48):
of most of the values in the copper, right?
So that, that's another thing that you sort of pick on is, is
people going, oh, I've got a copper project.
It's like, well, it's mostly gold or I've got a gold project.
Oh, it's mostly zinc, you know, So yeah, there's a whole bunch
of things. And that's, yeah, that's mostly
the the choice of how the company wants to get the invest,

(51:08):
get investors engaged with it. If they might, they might turn
into a mine. Who knows?
That's the That's the magic pudding.
Yeah. And the the final one you had,
Roland, was geotech work. What you can infer about the
company's willingness to mine. Yeah, like one recently that I

(51:30):
got a bit of a bugbear about wasLondon medals.
And you know, they've done great.
They're lucky because they've got 1518 thousand ounces in a
pit, right, that surface and it's right next to some odds and
everything like that. But before they did their
resource, they put out a map andsome drilling data and they've
got geotech holes. Now the IT sort of struck me as

(51:53):
odd because normally the processis that you do your expiration
drilling and you get that all together and you go, OK, I think
we've got a resource. So we're going to go and model
the resource and we're going to create a block model of some
kind, even if it's just an informal one to internal use
only or whatever they say to themselves to avoid having to

(52:17):
say, well, we've done a resourceand, you know, maybe they
haven't done the QAQC properly and, and they're just, you know,
so they can't release it becauseit's not not proper.
But they, they, you get an idea,right?
You do your back of the envelopeand then you do a whittle
optimization, which then basically says, well, if with
all the inputs you've got from mining costs and the value and

(52:39):
the metallurgy which you haven'treleased yet.
But you must obviously have an assumption on and you do.
You put it all in the pot and you cook it up and it and it
basically whips out this this pitch shell and it's very rough.
And it's not, you know, got no geotechnical input into it.
But that gives you an idea of mathematically, what's the pit

(52:59):
going to look like? How big's it going to be?
Roughly where, where are the walls going to be?
And so one of the things you gotto do, especially if you're
getting mining finance from a bank, is geotech to make sure
the pit doesn't fall in on your head.
And it's also part of the safetyand, and the mines act as well.
You know, you got to consider that is that you you got to make

(53:21):
a a design that is fit and will not kill people.
So you have to do geotech. So it's a pretty good indicator
that someone's serious about mining when they're chucking
geotech in right? And it also means that they must
have a pit wall that they're aiming the geotech towards,
which means that they've got a whittle optimization, which
means they've got a block model of some kind, which means that

(53:45):
they've done a resource and theyknow what they've got right.
So when they, when a company just randomly releases geotech
holes, you sort of work your wayback and you go, oh, you've got
to go resource optimization, pitgeotech.
The other way to look at it is, oh, we've got a resource, we've

(54:07):
got a pit optimize. We're, we're going to be the
next great gold producer. We're going to make 150,000 oz a
year starting next year. And there's no geotech.
All right, So either they're taking a massive risk on that or
they're not actually prepared togo mining because they haven't
done the geotech for the pit design processes, right.

(54:30):
So it's a it's a tell anyone who's serious about mining will
be doing geotech. You've provided us with a list
of your yellow flags as well, and of course of our combo.
I think we've covered a few of them.
Selective sampling and rock tubesampling in general.
Portable XRF talk about metal equivalents.
Yeah to talked about carbonatite.

(54:52):
So that leaves visual estimates,exploration targets, scoping
studies, and slick Letterheads. Tell us about.
These, I think the easiest one's, the slick is, you know,
we've discussed a lot about the sort of PR philosophies and
strategies and stuff. And, and it's like a, a bottle

(55:13):
of wine. But the worst wine has the most
outrageously good label, right? You know, you've got, you've got
a $5 bottle of wine with this fantastic label.
And then you've got Penfolds Grange with this like late 1800s
style label on it. And you just know that Penfolds
is the, is the deal because theydon't have to dress it up.

(55:35):
Now that's not to say that you should invest in guys who can't
do typesetting and and have no promo.
And promo is important in getting your message out there
because you could have 1,000,000ounces of gold and no one rates
it if they don't know about it. But yeah, it's like, yeah,

(55:55):
sometimes the, the harder they try, the more you sort of think,
try hard in terms of the visual estimates.
I think we've we've kind of did that a bit.
But one, one thing I will say isthat the CPS are also having to
do and boards as well and, and board board members and company

(56:19):
secretaries have to deal with the ASX.
And the ASX isn't populated by people who know anything about
rocks. And, you know, they, they have a
shit list and they even put out a guidance note last week saying
that they're going to formalise that into, you know, companies
which have had bad disclosure orhave not met expectations or

(56:45):
whatever they said going to get enhanced surveillance, which
means they're on the shit list. And there are, I've been talking
with people who are on that list.
I've worked for companies which are on that list.
And, and, and you have to sometimes keep reissuing stuff
for inane things. You know, I've looked at it and
I go that, that looks fine. And I just move on to the next

(57:07):
one. And then the next day, they've
had to retract it. And I don't always get see
everything either, right? A lot of people do send me
little anonymous tips and say, oh, have you checked this out
yet? But the ASX they're mostly
lawyers, sometimes accountants, you know, and they're interested

(57:30):
in complying with the listing rules, but they may not
understand how difficult it is to get a proper visual estimate
of the mineralogy in something and classic was in the case of
some of these lithium explorers would would note tourmaline
tourmaline's an indicator sometimes that it's not lithium

(57:53):
bearing some some tourmalines are an indicator.
It is it depends on the tourmaline species.
If you're on the side of a hill in the Pilbara and you don't
have access to a teamer or a spectral scanner, you just say
it's tourmaline bearing pigmatize.
You announce it, it comes out with some assays and they go,
oh, you didn't give us a percentage of the tourmaline.

(58:15):
And it's like, it doesn't matter.
It's just got to have tourmalinein it to be, to be perspective,
right? And yet they want to they want
to know exactly what minerals inall your minerals in percentage
terms. So, you know, some people I've
I've worked with have had to go and reissue ASX announcements

(58:35):
and just sort of go, geez, I don't know what was it 70%
feldspar, 2% tourmaline, go backto their photos and have to give
a, you know, a modal abundance, the mode that the abundance of
each mineral visually in the rock sample that they took weeks
ago in the Pilbara and they've got the assays for right.

(58:58):
And, and it's just inane and frustrating and it's getting
worse and, and it's going to geta lot worse, I think.
So, yeah, people have to be verycautious about saying, oh, we
hit something or other. And and also visual abundances
have to come out with disclaimers about, you know, we
can't tell that there's penalty elements.

(59:20):
And that includes for visible gold.
A lot of the people with the photo, like, say, new Murchison,
massive slug of gold. Oh, visual estimate.
OK, yeah, it's a giant chunk of gold.
We all know that that's worth something.
But we can't tell you exactly how much gold's in it till we
assay it, OK? We also can't tell you if
there's any deleterious elementsin it until we assay it.

(59:42):
And I'm like, well, it's metal, whatever, but that's just what
you got to go through. So there's this whole layer of
bureaucracy with the ASX where they're not really bringing
anything to the team, right? They don't sometimes understand
the difference between Oz contained in a resource and tons

(01:00:04):
in a resource. You know, people, some of these
people are getting confused about units of measurements.
What inferred resource is versusan indicated resource?
You know, they'll get confused about that.
How can you claim it's inferred when you haven't done the work?
But we've got measured in there as well.
We've done the work to get to measured.
So we have to have some inferredin there.

(01:00:25):
That was one of the things it's like they were saying you can't
have inferred in your resource. It's like, well, it.
And also in terms of, say, scoping studies and
forward-looking statements, there's a minefield and I don't
envy a lot of people with this. ISX has been big on this lately,
right? Yeah.
And, and there are a few which have been, yeah, really taking

(01:00:48):
the piss. But especially for scoping
studies, sometimes it's, it's kind of like, you know, a thumb
suck. And and it just, it has to be
plausible, but not probable, right.
So is it possible that sometime in the next 10 years we can get
this out of the ground and make some money out of it?

(01:01:08):
Yes. OK.
And then you have to explain themethods you went through.
It may have a resource, it may not have a resource.
There's nothing saying you can'tdo a scoping study on an
expiration target. Some people have done that.
Other people have had to go all the way through to indicated
resources level of of quality before they can do a scoping

(01:01:31):
study. Certainly the majority can't be
from inferred resources. You can't put out a
forward-looking statement because you haven't got the
certainty, yeah on inferred resources to do that.
So. Companies, they Well, if they
can slip it through, they do andthen they issue the retraction
at 3:00 PM in the afternoon but the the numbers are out there
and the. Yeah.
And that that's, you know, the, there's been some complaints

(01:01:54):
made about that sort of behaviour as becoming the norm
and that that's sadly entirely on the ASX for letting it
through in the 1st place. Now everyone will try it will
try anything once. So let's give it a go.
Let's see if we can slip it through.
Sometimes it's, it's unintentional for sure.
Other times it is intentionally trying to get it out there so

(01:02:18):
they can retract it, you know, But at the end of the day, the
you, you can't publish on the ASX without at least in theory,
someone reviewing it. So yeah, the ASX needs more
people. They need better, you know, need
better people on the job. That's another layer of

(01:02:38):
complexity there for CPS and boards to have to deal with.
As Australia goes overseas to say Africa, Eurasia, Southeast
Asia, a lot of these places there's no legal requirement to
report drilling, so it never gets reported or comes with it

(01:03:00):
is. Common that a lot of drilling
can be done sometimes and just never like the results of it
never reported. Yep, Yep.
Sound allowed in Australia. No, it's not allowed.
Yeah, does. It still happen in.
Australia. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Especially if you've got prospecting licences right, it's

(01:03:20):
getting less common. Roland, you're an industry
outsider. Do you agree with that?
Yeah, more or less. I'm underemployed by the
industry at the moment and people have said you'll never
get a job with those guys if yousay that.
You've you've pissed off a lot of people in the last 12 months

(01:03:42):
in particular, right? I've had a couple of people
contact me and I've, I've got the impression that they might
be unhappy. But I've also, I've actually got
a, a little bit of work reviewing people's stuff.
Or it's given me an introductionto people who sort of realised

(01:04:07):
that maybe they haven't done what they or haven't, you know,
disclosed things properly and they needed to go back and check
their work. And yeah, in a way, maybe it's
costing me some jobs. But, you know, would I last very

(01:04:28):
long with those companies? It's the other question, you
know, people don't like to be questioned.
Most people don't like to do things that they know will cause
other people to dislike them. What motivates you to continue
your WTF? Well, I've always been someone

(01:04:52):
who likes to poke at things and you know, I'm not, I'm not
expecting to see a lot of, you know, company directors respond
to me. There's been a couple, but I
think that, you know, the, the majority of people who reach out

(01:05:13):
to me are either investors or young geos.
The investors are like, I learned so much from what you're
doing. I learned a lot about the
processes of mining and everything.
And I've learned to read announcements better and young
geos who are saying, Oh, I've never really considered that I

(01:05:34):
need to do this, that and the other thing in order to, to be
jerk compliant. And you know, and the other
thing is like people use jerk asthis sort of magic term.
It's jerk compliant and therefore they use it to sort of
legitimize all sorts of stuff. Jokes, just a a code of telling
people what you've done. So it's like saying I'm

(01:05:57):
compliant with telling you what I've got to do, but yet I don't
do that. I just say I'm Joel compliant.
I don't actually tell you what went into the sausage or the
lasagna, right? And there's layers and layers of
of meat and and pasta. And we're just going to give you
the cheese on top. And it's like, OK, someone me is

(01:06:19):
sitting there saying, hang on, I've peeled the cheese off on
top and there's no meat. You know, it's like, yeah, if
you feel offended by that, I would.
I would think, well, maybe you should hire me.
Maybe give me a job to review your disclosure before it goes
out. I'll do that.
I'd love to be paid for this butbut yeah, would someone hire me

(01:06:43):
as a senior expiration GA because I've I've poo pooed what
they did on some project five years ago but they've turned me
down Maybe. I mean, but that's fine, I'll do
my own thing. Thanks for making the time and
coming on the show. Yeah, no worries.
I'll be sitting there and on LinkedIn doing what I can when

(01:07:04):
I'm not in the field. Fighting the fight.
But yeah, and yeah, yeah, you know, peer review is one thing
that's coming is proposed for competent people and disclosures
and you know, that's a it's an interesting idea.
But yeah, like who, who else is out there asking these

(01:07:26):
questions? You know I.
Think that's super what I said? Talk.
WTF? Yep, fantastic.
Cheers. Awesome mate a wealth of
knowledge for the punters out there.
I'm sure they all like that one as much as I did We've got a few
partners to thank to wrap this one up big thank you to mineral
mining services, grounded sand, big ground support, K drill,
cross boundary energy and check out the focus platform by market

(01:07:49):
tech we're. Fine to show on there.
Who to rue money miners. Now remember, I'm an idiot.
JD is an idiot. If you thought any of this was
anything other than entertainment, you're an idiot
and you need to read out a disclaimer.