Left BH a couple days ago and returned to Cairns for a planned surgery ( minor) En route I had a discussion with a local contractor who is in touch with a few the site workers . A few issues it seems, but no deal breakers yet. They are finding that in the "arid zone" country when it does rain its more than a couple of days hold-up if you have heavy gear to move around--can be a week before operations start again--and then it rains again!!--life in the bush.. Creeks can cut off access for days at a time--sometimes helicopters had to be used to shift people in and out--forget trucks moving..I'm guessing road upgrade works have shot up the priority list.
A few handbrakes applied by various government people eg EPA who "ruled " that instead of 6 or 7 rigs, 3 rigs on site would now be max allowable (personnel numbers) and a couple of other weird things that didn't do anything except slow down progress. The general feeling was that "it wont happen overnight--but it will happen" , and the original schedule of end of Q2 for the Resource Upgrade will still be met in spite of the handbrake people (and maybe even the odd further rain-shower ) . The "supplementary drilling campaign" mentioned by CuGood was also mentioned as a rumour, but I didn't get the impression that it would affect the Upgrade release date if it happened. Some other locals are starting to voice opinions that the schedule to production is overly optimistic, but my gut feel is that those are very much a minority group who are not well informed (I still say HIO needs a local BH office/information centre) and mostly are not invested in HIO anyway--at least that's what they sounded like to me.
Of course, would be a world first if the planned schedule from remote open paddock to world class mine unfolded absolutely exactly as planned without any hold-ups or negative stories (just ask Twiggy), but to date the management team has kept us shareholders very well informed and met every deadline as promised, and I'm still more than happy to hold at very least until after first production. The story remains the same.
As Mas said-3rd or 4th week of June still looks most likely. I wont be back in BH until late June, but will advise if any good info comes my way. Remaining calm and holding.. Cheers
