The hydrogeology is a genuine issue etc, absolutely, but they're not hugely shooting themselves in the foot by delaying AGY's permit, or arguably at all. AGY hasn't yet convinced the Argentinian government they can actually achieve commercial production any more than they've convinced the market. If AGY can't actually do it (don't get me wrong, I'm confident they can and we're getting close to that being more obvious and soon will be confirmed), giving AGY permits to do it doesn't help Argentina get their "voluntary royalties". If AGY already had technology which was actually demonstrated to work in a fully functional facility (to anyone still confused about this, the pilot plant never got anywhere near a production rate of 500TPA, if it had done we wouldn't be solving the problems and working out how to do it now, and in some respects the 2,000TPA actually is performing the function of a pilot plant).
If they gave us the permit one or two years ago, it's not like we were going to start constructing it one or two years ago. We still haven't sorted out the 2,000TPA plant. They're not exactly shooting themselves in the foot, and for the same reasons they're not actually hurting us as much as some here think (though it definitely is harming the share price in the short term, which they don't care about and in the long term won't matter to us other than stress, sleepless nights and divorces in the mean time).
If you don't think it's about the money, take a moment to think that we all 100% know that it is 100% about the money. It's always 100% about the money. If not for the money do you think AGY would ever have been allowed to enter Argentina? If not for the money do you think AGY would ever have wanted to set foot in Argentina? Of course it's about the money, it's only about the money. The Puna ads literally look like we're some sort of NGO charity organisation (even those actual organisations are scams!) and we might all act like we're here with altruistic goals to save the world or something, but the government, the company and the shareholders all have money as their primary and in most cases their only goal, and anything else is a secondary consideration.
If giving us the permit a year or two ago would have put dramatically more money into the Argentinian government's hands and they were able to be sure about that a year or two ago, we'd already have the permit. That wasn't the case and we don't have the permit. If you don't think environmental issues get rushed through when money is on the line, take a look at your own back yard in Australia where they issue permits even when it is outright known that extreme environmental damage will be done, locals opposing the projects are ignored, and if you know it often happens in Australia it's quite a stretch to say it doesn't happen in Argentina! It's easy to act concerned about environmental issues for a couple of years when money *isn't* on the line, while as some have pointed out on these Hot Copper discussions, other companies have been granted permits more quickly. People ask why we weren't given out permit... it's because we haven't been at the stage where money is on the line, so why rush anything through? Money makes the world go 'round. The Argentinian government isn't stupid enough to believe JZ's 'imminent carrot', they want to see the results, and in the mean time they'll find other issues to fuss over.
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