How many

drillholes do I need
to upgrade my
Inferred Resource?

Andrew Fowler
Kathy Zunica
The Idea

Overheard in a boardroom in Canada…

“You typically upgrade 30 % of your resource

from an in-fill drilling programme”

- Very experienced geologist

Now that the challenge was accepted…

• Was there actually any truth in the premise?

• How were we going to isolate the data to
ensure we were only looking at in-fill
drilling?
• What sort of factors might influence the
success of an in-fill drilling programme?
• Could we possibly investigate all of these
factors?
• How were we going to measure it?
We needed to focus our attention…

Could we answer these questions….

• Do in-fill drilling programmes meet the
resource upgrade expectations?
• Do factors such as the commodity type,
change in competent person or resource
size influence whether the in-fill drilling
programme will achieve the desired
outcome?
• How does the grade change when the
resource is upgraded?
The Aim…

Establish a benchmark for how many drillholes

are required to upgrade a desired proportion

of a Mineral Resource from Inferred to higher

resource categories.
Case Studies
Deposit Type Commodity Group Number
Shear/Breccia hosted Precious Metal (Shear/Breccia) 12
Shear/Breccia hosted Base Metal 1
Porphyry Base Metal 7
Porphyry Precious Metal (Epithermal/Porphyry) 3
Epithermal Precious Metal (Epithermal/Porphyry) 7
Skarn Base Metal 3
Iron Formation Bulk Commodities 4
Carlin-type gold Precious Metal (Shear/Breccia) 2
Stratiform Copper Base Metal 2
Ultramafic Ni-Cu sulphide Base Metal 2
Iron Oxide Copper Gold Base Metal 1
Mineral sand: Zircon Titanium Bulk Commodities 1
Nickel Laterite Base Metal 1
Pegmatite Lithium Base Metal 1
Phosphate: upwelling type Bulk Commodities 1
Sedimentary Lead-Zinc-Silver Base Metal 1
Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide Base Metal 1
Case Studies
The Method – Information Collected

• Created a giant spread sheet.

• Comparison of 2 consecutive mineral resource
reports.
• Distilled the following information:
─ Number of drillholes.
─ Grade, tonnes and cut-off grade used for
reporting.
─ Reasons for change in classification –
geological interpretation, estimation
method.
─ Competent person.
The Method – How to Measure it
2012 estimate 2014 estimate

Tonnage (Mt) Ag (g/t) Tonnage Ag

(Mt) (g/t)
Inferred 4.3 513 5.1 372
Indicated 5.7 702 10.1 511

Indicated proportion 0.64 0.73

proportion change +0.09
Drillhole number 222 262
Increase in drilling 18%

• Grouped the Measured and Indicated categories together.

• Used contained metal to determine proportion.

• Plotted proportion change versus increase in drilling to investigate

the relationship between in-fill drilling and resource upgrade.
The Investigation – Initial Results
Optimal and Sub-optimal
Commodity Type
Resource Size
Change in Competent/Qualifed Person
Grade change
The Benchmark?
• Based on the results for the optimal population, if a company wishes
to obtain a proportion change of 0.2, the company should increase
drilling by 25 %.

• An optimal drilling programme will upgrade the resource with the least
amount of drillholes.
• If the proposed drill programme is not expected to produce the
resource upgrade predicted by the optimal population, it might be
pertinent to consider if there is redundancy in the drilling programme.
• Consultation between the CP/QP and the designer of the in-fill drillhole
programme is paramount.
• Further work is required to confirm the existence of the optimal and
sub-optimal populations and investigate other factors that influence
the success of in-fill drilling programmes.
Do you have a project that you
would like to see plotted?
AMC capability and experience
AMC Consultants (AMC) is a leading mining industry consultancy, providing
a broad range of high-quality, professional services to the global
exploration, mining and financial services industries.

AMC currently employs more than 170 professional geologists, engineers,

metallurgists and support staff working from offices in Australia, Canada,
Singapore and the United Kingdom.

AMC is a reliable business partner that has built trusted relationships with
the minerals sector over 30 years.

AMC has completed more than 7,000 assignments for major mining
companies and financial institutions in more than 100 countries in
Oceania, the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, the South Pacific, and
countries of the former Soviet Union.
Andrew Fowler
PhD, AusIMM CP (Geo)
Senior Geologist
afowler@amcconsultants.com

Kathy Zunica
BSc (Hons), MAusIMM
Senior Geologist
kzunica@amcconsultants.com
GRACIAS.