ASX Misses Real Culprits in JORC Code Crackdown

ASX recently forced Adelaide Resources to retract a report about progress at one of its Eyre Peninsula gold projects in South Australia. Evidently, the company stepped over the boundary between what is an allowable description of its project potential and what is frowned upon because of insufficient supporting evidence. To this reader, the Adelaide Resources announcement was neither misleading nor dishonest. The company outlined a course of action to assess a mineral deposit of still unknown size and economic potential making clear, in doing so, that its description fell short of what would be required to meet the JORC code standards for a resource estimate. That self-policing was low hanging fruit for a regulator. The greater risk for investors - and where market regulators’ attention is most sorely needed - is where companies claim to have fulfilled the JORC standards when they have not. Mining Journal recently reported research showing at least 60% of published industry reports over the past two years had failed in some way to meet the JORC Code requirements while claiming to have met the standard.