[defrost]

Apologies for so many typos ...

s/fantasy footbal /fantasy football /

> The real money gravitates towards increasing proven reserves etc.

Like a Reserve Bank - a mineral Reserve is a known entity - at least as known as anything can be to the limits of modern technology prior to actually digging it up.

There's been enough drilling to know the volumetric extents and grades of the materials of interest (most deposits have multiple minerals of interest), and quite often there's been an independant third party engineering and economic Technical Report commissioned on the feasibility of extraction, costs, methods, lifetime, and expected profit margins.