Mining and Resource Disclosure

The categories are defined, and they are not interchangeable

Mineral resources and mineral reserves are separate things under the rule, and the difference is not one of emphasis. Each has its own test, and each is subdivided.

A mineral resource requires an initial assessment demonstrating reasonable prospects for economic extraction, and it is subdivided into inferred, indicated, and measured. A mineral reserve requires a pre-feasibility or feasibility study applying modifying factors to indicated or measured resources, demonstrating economic viability, and it is subdivided into probable and proven.¹

The rule also blocks one shortcut directly. Inferred resources cannot support a mineral reserve determination unless they are first upgraded to indicated or measured.¹

For an editor those six terms are the whole job. They are defined terms with regulatory consequences, and a document that uses resource where it means reserve, or drops indicated from a sentence that needed it, has changed a claim rather than a word.

The signature requirements shape the document

A technical report summary identifies and summarizes the information reviewed and the conclusions reached by the qualified person about the resources or reserves on material properties. Where several qualified persons contribute, each dates and signs their own section, or a third-party firm signs on behalf of its employees.¹

The registrant must also state whether the qualified person is an employee. Where they are not, it must name the employer and disclose any affiliation with the registrant or with entities holding interests in the property.¹

Two editorial facts follow. The document has authored sections with different signatories, so terminology can diverge between them without anyone noticing. And a statement about affiliation is a required disclosure with a required subject, so its wording is checkable against the requirement rather than against taste.

What a document review finds here

Four passes, none of which requires knowing the geology.

The first is defined-term discipline, which is what Editors Canada's copy editing standards call resolving variations in terminology, logic, and mechanics and recording them on a style sheet.² Every appearance of resource, reserve, inferred, indicated, measured, probable, and proven, listed with its context, so that the six categories can be seen doing their work across a document written by several hands.

The second is attribution. Every conclusion in the summary should be traceable to the section and the qualified person it came from, and the signature blocks should cover what they appear to cover.

The third is numeric agreement between the summary, the technical sections, and any table. Checking whether a stated figure matches the one three pages earlier is copy editing as Editors Canada defines it, which covers correctness, accuracy, consistency, and completeness.³

The fourth is the required disclosures, checked as present, complete, and saying what the rule asks them to say. Where the filing also carries a prospectus cover page, summary, or risk factors section, those parts answer to the plain English rule as well. It requires short sentences, everyday words, the active voice, and no multiple negatives.⁴

Where the editor's authority stops, and why the line is sharp here

An editor does not decide whether a resource is indicated or measured, whether a study supports a reserve determination, whether an estimate is reasonable, or whether a property is material. Those are the qualified person's determinations and the registrant's responsibility under the rule, and they arrive with the copy.¹

The line is sharper on this material than on almost any other document EditFast handles. A word changed for readability can convert a resource into a reserve on the page, and the person who signed the technical report did not sign that sentence.

Everything a client sends is treated in confidence, including draft filings, technical reports, and correspondence with advisors. We work on mining and resource documents and on regulatory submissions against whatever specification the client supplies, and we query rather than resolve wherever a change would touch a defined term.

The most useful brief for this work is the list of defined terms and the sections each qualified person signed. With those two documents an editor can be genuinely useful. Without them, every sentence looks equally editable, and the few that are not look exactly like the rest.