What NI 43-101 is
National Instrument 43-101 — Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects — is the Canadian securities rule that governs how listed issuers communicate scientific and technical information about their mineral properties. It was introduced to protect investors by requiring that disclosure be accurate, balanced, and supported by qualified professionals.
The rule applies to virtually all public mineral disclosure, including news releases, websites, and presentations. That is why exploration companies are careful to label unverified historical figures and to use conservative, qualified language.
The Qualified Person
At the centre of the framework is the Qualified Person (QP) — an appropriately experienced and professionally registered geoscientist or engineer who takes responsibility for technical disclosure. Material scientific and technical information must be approved by a QP, and certain documents require the QP to be independent of the issuer.
This is why companies state that historical results are subject to QP verification: until a QP has reviewed and validated data, it cannot be presented as confirmed under the standard.
Resources, reserves, and technical reports
NI 43-101 ties into the CIM definitions for mineral resources and mineral reserves, which classify confidence levels (for resources: inferred, indicated, measured). A mineral reserve is the economically mineable part of a resource and requires more advanced study. Detailed support for these estimates is set out in a technical report, which is filed publicly.
These filings are available to anyone through SEDAR+, the public repository for Canadian securities disclosure. Reading the underlying technical report is the best way to understand the assumptions behind a headline number.
Why it matters
The framework does not guarantee that a project will succeed, but it does ensure a consistent, independently overseen standard for how results are reported. Understanding the difference between an exploration target, a resource, and a reserve helps readers judge how advanced and how certain a project really is.
This article provides general educational information about mineral exploration. For information concerning Eastfield's mineral projects, readers should refer to the Company's project disclosures, news releases and continuous-disclosure filings on SEDAR+.