Yes - funding is definitely the question of the moment.When you...

Yes - funding is definitely the question of the moment.

When you break this down, potentially Limon may not be expensive to get up and running. These are very ballpark numbers, maybe $30m/$35m to get to BFS and then I seem to recall mention of a $250m to $300m estimate for capex on an open pit, truck and shovel + processing operation. Add in another $30m for initial working capital.

Thus, a really rough guestimate of $365m all up for a possible 150,000 oz pa / 10+ year mine life operation with, say, an AISC of maybe A$1,800 (?) - if so, we are talking a net $1,500/oz margin before financing. At current gold price = annual $225m EBITDA.

At the moment, raising $365 million is fairyland for STM, so they need to find a bridge that gets the share price moving. Hence the next step to raise capital for a targeted drill program is the "foundation stone" to such a dream.

If they can do the next capital; raise well, share price starts to move as the market starts to price in some "progress" - then drill results puts an initial resource around Limon and price moves again - then another cap raise to take through further drilling and into a feasibility study. The release of a PFS that shows sound the project economics would see further traction in share price. The financing of the mine at that stage becomes tricky but depending on the PFS and share price at the time, they may have a few options.

A rising gold price (if it continues to build into a bull run) definitely makes this super interesting as the timing is then near on perfect as these project steps unfold.

Lots of ifs / buts in the above, however they have a very interesting resource. I think (hope) they have the board / management skills to get the next capital raise away with a little more innovation than just simply doing a massive / highly dilutive share issue at the 1c mark.