Why every drill hole database and block model is an approximation - and why reconciliation between geological models and plant production remains the only reliable measure of mineral resource accuracy.
Video transcription
Why Every Mining Database Is an Approximation
I have to say that I have a prejudice against the blockchain and the digital monitoring of everything. I have worked a lot with computers, databases, and models, and the only thing I can tell you - I can guarantee you - they are all false. Everything we have in our database is wrong. Wrong. Why?
The Inherent Variability of Drill Hole Samples
Well, look at the database with drill holes and samples. You have thousands and thousands of samples, and very often they come from the same drill hole. They are all together - one sample followed by another, another, another. You can never find two samples that are identical. They are all different.
So what are they telling us? Each sample is saying that the next sample is wrong, and that sample is saying this one is wrong. "I know the truth, I am right, you are wrong" - and so on and so forth. Every sample contradicts the others. So they are all false - because if you drill another hole right next to this one, you will have a series of different samples again.
The samples of reality are all different. They are all wrong.
Where the Truth Actually Lives: Reconciliation Through Production
The truth is not in the samples. The truth is in the reality, which is in the ground. And the truth comes out when you mine it and put it through the plant - not through the computer, through the plant. That is when the truth comes out.
And even that truth - when you sell concentrate of copper, or tons of iron ore, or diamonds - that is not even the full reality. The reality is something else entirely.
The Gap Between Commodity Deals and Physical Reality
The reality is something outside of what we have in our minds. The price we pay for materials is somebody's idea. Someone decided, "I am going to buy 10 tons of iron ore and I am going to pay so much for it." So that is a deal.
We think the deal is a reality, but it is not. Because when the 10 tons of iron ore arrive at their destination and are used, it may turn out that they have some contamination that was not put on the bill - and so on and so forth.
Mineral Resource Models Are Approximations, Not Truth
So the reality is something outside of our brain and our ideas. As humans, we thrive, we live, and we depend on mineral resources and other resources. In the mining industry, we produce mineral resources - we depend on them and we make deals around them.
But everything we have in our databases and our computers are models. They are a good approximation at best - but they are not the truth. The truth is outside and independent from us.