The trial was funded by a grant from the government. At the end of the day we got as much as we could out of that. Lachlan didn't have an option to send the MC51 away and spend the grant on getting the decline done quicker by conventional means. It was a green trial funded by a green government not a help HGO shareholders get rich scheme.
He also didn't have alternate funding in his budget to complete the decline.
He did very well getting a lender to enter into a definitive agreement to provide the funds for the FID based on the three year mine plan. The collapse in the copper price put paid to that.
If the extra year of mine life from the nugent MRE and the extra throughput from Spitfire aren't enough to give our lender comfort It seems we have got way more than enough funds to complete the decline and UG drilling to resurrect the 5yr mine plan.
With Freepoint now firmly attached to the sticky paper by its investment in Royalties from all the resources on the mining lease and talk of a much bigger project I'm wondering if a plan is emerging to drill Coopers, Chrichley, Emily Star and Paringa and shorten the time line to running the plant full.
Getting the royalties sooner would certainly make Freepoint happy and having more than twice as much free cash flow coming earlier would put a big smile on my face.
HGO Price at posting:
4.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
