BLM BIG SANDY APPROVED!, page-138

I would have thought it was fairly obvious why AZL did not release the scoping study.

In my opinion, AZL were expecting to receive drilling approval before releasing the scoping study. Additional drilling with a tighter drilling matrix allows for over 50% of the current resource to be potentially recategorized and therefore included in future studies plus provides reasonable potential to increase the resource size as only 4% of Big Sandy has been drilled.

Releasing the study without the additional drilling would have meant a much shorter life of mine and therefore weaker economics for the project.

This is the reason why the news of drilling approval is so significant. AZL have already completed the work in the scoping study and will now be able to quickly progress through the studies stage hopefully with a much larger resource.

I am looking forward to seeing the PFS/DFS after drilling and resource upgrade.

All in my opinion and please do your own research.