Member Info for Rocktapper

Wish I could 'top slice'! I still have an average of 11p to beat before I see any profit and that's a hangover from the Ortac days. However, as you'll notice from my posts, I'm fairly optimistic of what's being discovered here and the potential for the Zambian and DRC assets. Just depends on nature (no control on that), good management (seems to be doing quite well) and the markets (which are shocking!).

Maybe Remy has seen the core coming out of the holes being drilled?

James: Your first bit of advice about being patient was good advice! Hold in there. And if it does head down to 10p (which I hope it doesn't), it'll be time to 'fill yer' boots'! Today's slumps are a result of today's underlying market drop and nothing to do with the strength of this company. The SP will recover.

I didn't read John Meyor's piece before posting mine this morning!

Here's another!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706118301599
I might get to read them at some point!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S001678780680012X

The 'black sap' mentioned in the C.C. is referring to black saprolite. It's a product of weathering of rock / mineralisation in-situ in a generally tropical environment. In this case, it appears they are also using the term to represent the redeposition of copper and manganese (oxide) minerals in particular horizons (in a redox zone).
The conversation confirmed a few things that I previously suspected in that the drilling has been encountering mainly 'oxides' - hence, the weathered secondary by-products of deeper sulphides. There is probably an amount of 'hypergene enrichment' going on as a result of the weathering and movements in the water table which are resulting in these higher grade copper values. From what I can make out, this 'black saprolite' has become a target for the copper. You can actually see the darker material at surface in some areas close to the drilling and Cheyeza East on Google imagery.
VC stated that the black saprolite appears to be a separate horizon from the deeper (unweathered) sulphides and they have encountered sulphides deeper and at distance from the saprolite.
There are a number of implications to all this IMHO:
It appears there are potential higher grade (1 – 2%) copper (oxide) resources created by the black saprolite which are shallow (<100m), quite thick (up to c. 25m) and which could be relatively quickly drilled out and quantified. From the C.C., this appears to be at least part of the current strategy.
The ‘pilot plant’ at Kalaba is only 30 odd km away (as the crow flies) so could be used to test this material for processing / metallurgy ahead of setting up a larger operation. It could probably be moved up to Cheyeza, if necessary.
In the medium term, mining of this type of resource could potentially be carried out relatively cheaply (lower capex, operating and fixed costs) because of the shallow depth, weathered nature and relative ease and lower cost in processing the material - if it was decided this was the way to go. A lower cost mining operation could also potentially fund exploration of deeper, lower grade but more extensive sulphide horizons in the various target areas.
Of course, the other way to go is to test all of the main targets and then reprioritise based on findings…that’s the fun of exploration!
“How do you get a geologist to give you a straight answer? Chop one of their hands off!”

...is really getting disappointing now!

Looks like Prof Conroy and the other members of the KDR BoD are tougher than teflon!
No end in sight for us long-suffering shareholders of both companies by the looks of it.

I've not had a chance to go through it all yet but check the link below for the filing history for the Administrators of Cradle Arc with Companies House which gives background to the on-going Administration and Liquidation:

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05315922/filing-history

When they get the results back from the lab for samples from CHDDE004 which were no doubt above the detection limits of the initial assay method!
Other than that, generally the results RNS's are dependent upon the progress of the drilling, the time it takes to log and cut the core and then send it to the lab for analysis, and then the lab to analyse and report the samples. Then for the geologists and management to make their interpretations. The mining industry overall is looking at ways of trying to speed this process up by things like sampling/analysis at the hole but it's complicated, more expensive and taking time to implement more widely.

ARCM are currently drilling just outside that 'mapped' subcrop and are hitting thick (in the order of magnitude of 25 metres) and relatively high grade ( 1 - 2%) mineralisation at less than 70 m depth. This is hugely encouraging.

By way of an example of’ order-of-magnitude’ estimation of potential and using assumptions based on the current drilling, if one was to assume the area covered by the current drill from CHDDE002 (I'll exclude CHDDE001 for now) extends down to the southeast up to the limit of the current XRF soil anomaly shown on the infill map; and then a polygon is formed by taking a line down dip along the limit of the anomaly as far as the limit created by CHDDE007 and then back up to parallel to a point southeast and along the line of CHDDE002, you generate an area of around 300,000 square metres. If you can picture this projected downwards and dipping slightly (?to the southwest, where it would technically become a greater surface area):
Based on the intersections so far, if we assume:
25m thickness of mineralised material;
Material specific gravity (SG) ˜ 2.9
Tonnage (area x thickness x SG) ˜ 21.75 M tonnes.

If we conservatively look at the grade and assume that to be about 1% Cu for the 'main' 25m thick unit in this area:
˜ 217.5 k tonnes of contained copper in-the-ground (or a ‘value’ of around US$ 1.283 billion at US$ 5900 / tonne Cu).
All that mineralised material is well within 100m of the surface. The area I delineated is only a part of the area covered by the Cheyeza East soil anomaly and extrapolated around the current drilling. You only need to go find another four similar areas within the Cheyeza area alone and you could be looking in the order of around 1 M tonnes in-the-ground contained metal ‘resources’. I can see why the RNS suggested there was going to be more infill soil sampling (e.g. needed on Cheyeza West) to further refine the targets as the 'original' soil geochemistry map is low resolution (too poorly defined).

The company has the potential problem of having to deal with too many targets or rather the eventual size of them! It's a nice problem to have though. I would say that assuming nothing goes wrong, there is significant potential for the eventual development of several mines from these targets.

Finally, Kansanshi contains low grade gold (0.12 g/t). I haven’t seen any information regarding whether ARCM are analysing for gold at Cheyeza or whether or not it is likely to be present in the system…

The held by Zaco and Zamsort as shown by the geology. For anybody who wishes to make their own assessment of the prospectivity of the Zamsort and Zaco ground as covered by the soil geochemistry and now the drilling, can go to the Zambia Mining Cadastre Portal at: http://portals.flexicadastre.com/zambia/
Search for the licences under the codes given for the properties below.
Zamsort: 19906-HQ-LEL
Zaco: 23005-HQ-LEL and 23004-HQ-LEL

Make sure the 'Active' and 'Geology' tick boxes are ticked and untick the others in the legend on the left hand side.
You should see the geological map underneath the licence map. The reddy colour which shows beneath the blue coloured licence areas represents the (Lower Roan with basal conglomerate) 'main copper bearing unit'. Review the geological map layer, to see how the main copper bearing unit is covered by the Zamsort and Zaco licences in these areas. Technically the map represents the outcrop / subcrop of the unit. Of course, not all sections will be continually mineralised. The soil geochemistry indicates the sections that might be. However, these comparisons also allow you to compare the positions of the existing mines such as Sentinel (FQM), Lumwana (Barrick) and Kansanshi (FQM) within this unit.
Continued.../

Yes, I think that's perhaps a fair comment too. I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Cascabel / Alpala etc. is a porphyry copper (you could argue that an IOCG is just the end of the spectrum!) but yes, it is (very) deep and so in respect of the fact that the mineralisation at Cheyeza is close(r) to surface, means that there's potentially a time / money benefit element to any development of the ARCM prospects. My point was really about the analogy of drawing potential interest from the majors.

Topsharepicks: Far too early to say! I was simply looking at the pattern of the locations of the major deposits and other potential structural features I can see. IF these prospects do start indicating that they are significant, then the mentioned majors and others may, of course, take an interest. An analogy may be what's happening with Solgold in Ecuador and the fact that BHP and Newcrest have taken significant interests in that company by investing significant amounts on exploration. Although there's dilution, the share price has risen overall due to what they are finding and the potential asset value. Although the deposit type is different to ARCM's, the same sort of scenario might apply in the future, assuming the encouraging results continue.

Whilst I agree with these statements regarding the proximity to FQM's Sentinel mine / deposit, I believe everyone has to take a step back and look at the more fundamental geological picture as to why there may be significant potential in Cheyeza and increasingly, West Lunga.
One only has to plot the geographical positions of FQM's Kansanshi mine, Barrick's Lumwana mine (Solwezi) and FQM's Sentinel mine (using Google Earth etc.) to see that these large deposits are approximately equi- straight-line distant between one another at between ~56 - ~70km separation. If you plot up Cheyeza East, Central and West, the separation to Sentinel is ~40 - 45 - 48 km respectively. I have high hopes for these!
However, perhaps more interestingly, the position of West Lunga is approximately 70 km from Sentinel and therefore, has a linear separation more in line with the linear separations between the other 3 deposits.
There is a possibility that these ‘regular-ish’ separations result from deep crustal lineaments which could have acted as controls to the mineralisation but which can only be inferred at surface from satellite imagery (e.g. for a start, Google).
My point is then, that the known large deposits have a broad and fairly equidistant separation such that if this concept is anywhere near the reality, the next large deposit along the 'belt' could be extrapolated to occur somewhere between Cheyeza and West Lunga (assuming the other things like geology / stratigraphy are the same / similar as in the major mines - I’m working on finding this out).
This to me, provides a more fundamental geological theory as to the potential for the Zamsort / ARCM prospects and therefore, why the likes of FQM or Barrick might eventually be interested in ARCM, rather than simply on the proximity of the ARCM prospects to their existing mills.

A good day for a diamond rig would be around 40m / 24 hour day - a really good day would be 60m. Stick at 40m and two rigs gives you 90 days plus time for rig moves and public holidays for the planned 7200m programme. Then they have to log and cut the core and then send it off for assay but which is being done contemporaneously with the programme. The analysis usually adds the delay but they seem to have had a quick lab turn around on the first two holes. They don't seem to be drilling too deep either so that could speed things up a little.

More up-to-date (figures up to 2018):
https://www.mining.com/featured-article/ranked-worlds-top-copper-mines/?utm_source=Copper_Digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MNG-DIGESTS&utm_content=ranked-worlds-top-copper-mines

Am very disappointed by the continuing lack of news. I only hope that it is a case of , 'No news is good news!'.