Interestingly, Antipa gets to choose at this point.
And then, if they decline to contribute, RIO gets to choose what they have Antipa do next.
RIO can equally elect to sit at 65%, and AZY then have to tip in 35% from then on or be slowly, progressively diluted to the same effect, but more gradually.
But RIO quite clearly want to go to 75% on Calibre-Magnum if Antipa will allow them. Their accelerated expenditure is a massive indication of what they think of / know about the project. A very positive vote for it (along with all those RIO 'Calibre' recruitment adverts Shines has been posting - thanks Shines).
And I think that the RIO budget increase to $25m at this point may even partly be an attempt to strong-arm Antipa into declining their option to contribute at 35% (and preferring to spend that extra money on Minyari-WACA).
Because if Antipa elect to keep RIO down to 65% (which was their original aim and desire as I understood it), then Antipa will have to find $A8.75M to contribute to the RIO JV this year, and in the years after that an ongoing 35%.
Whereas if Antipa let RIO spend that additional $A8.5m this year, and then the additional $A26.5M to go to 75% after that, they have saved themselves $A35M and have only surrendered a further 10% of the Calibre-Magnum JV.
So it depends on what Antipa really think of C-M and what they value it at.
If they were to let RIO have that next 10% for an expenditure of $35m, that could be viewed as RIO putting a total value on the C-M JV project of at least $A350M (Antipa's present 35% therefore being then worth $A122.5M, which is 4.9c/share to Antipa simply for their equity in the RIO JV!)
And then the other question for Antipa is: 'Which will be the biggest prize? Will it be Calibre-Magnum? Or will it be Minyari-WACA?' And of course they don't know this yet, butthey must make their C-M decision by 30 April - they have only got 18 days.
For me, I personally think there is now a very good chance that Minyari-WACA is quite literally the 'Next Havieron'. Meaning it is the next deposit along on that underlying mineralised structure, as you head northwest up the underlying basement fracture. I think it represents the next regionally-spaced cell of mineralising hydrothermal activity as you head NW along structure (and it sits in the same host rocks and has the same style and grade of copper-gold mineralisation).
Which doesn't mean Minyari-WACA will necessarily be as big as Havieron (or necessarily as small..). But it is certainly shallower, and if it drills out to be a similar size and grade, it will be far more more profitable deposit to mine.
But Antipa don't have that information yet. And they have only 18 days to make the call.
So what could they do in the next 18 days to help them make a more informed decision?
Well, if I was Antipa, I would be thinking about putting one rather deep diamond drill hole straight into the guts of the enticing magnetic anomaly that they have got just down-plunge of the most recent high grade Minyari diamond drilling intersection. A 200m deep RC pre-collar would go down in a day, and then a double-shifting diamond rig could probably drill a 600m diamond hole off the bottom of that in another 10 days, for a total of 800m depth. That would test it, looking at the Minyari long section in this morning's presentation.
And if that is in the plan, why not do it right now. It would not be acting in haste; simply prioritising what needs to be done anyway.
Then if that hole drilled 20 or 30m of visually very obvious high grade 'matrix sulphide breccia' (the same material that got 141g/t Au, 9.5% Cu, 18.5g/t Ag in the drill hole just up plunge of there), Antipa would be in a far better position to make an informed choice as to whether or not to retain a contributing 35% of Calibre-Magnum on 30 April.
And they would also in a much better position to raise the necessary additional funds.
Of course, they might already have made the decision.
They may have decided to err on the side of caution, minimise their risk, and just let RIO carry them for 25%.
Or, knowing what they and RIO now know about Calibre-Magnum, Antipa may have decided that the extra 10% is worth far more than the market is currently giving them credit for and have already decided to contribute and hold onto their 35%.
(20min delay)