As many of you would recall, there was a stack of drilling late 2015 and early 2016.  This included a lot of drilling right on our doorstep.  My understanding of how this works is something like this

• Metro Rail do a stack of drilling
• They also do some modelling.  Essentially they try and work out how hard the digging will be and what risks they are likely to encounter.
• They send the models and the data to the short listed bidders.
• The short listed bidders are told – we think you have enough information to prepare you bids (ie lock in your price).  If you don’t think you have enough information, let us know and we will do some more.

Well you’ll notice some more drilling lately.  As I understand it, this is a result of the short listed bidders saying….”That area near the NGV, we need some more drill samples there.”

It shows the process at work and gives me some comfort that things are working.  I’m also pleased to see that none of the extra drilling is near us (to date)…means all the bidders think this part is not of concern to them.   And remember that this is three separate consortium working independently.