You need to look at the images I posted closely. I know they're a bit hard to see.
Yes, Don has said that CSM will be on state land. No, the PEA was based on our resource drilled to date. This month's drill campaign seeks to drill out areas of claimed/vague state land holdings that overlap hugely with land that in no uncertain terms was NOT state land until very recent announcements. When Chris was running us and when Mel was President they consistently said we'd be looking at 2028 kind of optimistically due to the long permitting times to get Halleck up and running, which still falls into present-day, perhaps conservative estimates of when CSM will get up and running on suddenly newly categorised state land. This has changed under Dons' management, towards focussing on taking the state permitting pathway, which is great but the mine plan doesn't seem to be on any state land claims. We have never had a drill campaign based on previously defined state land holdings. However, this seems to have changed as recent claims of state land include areas that weren't previously known to be state land holdings (Red Mountain & Trail Creek. This month's campaign seeks to only drill at Red Mountain to define that region more clearly for the PFS. No drilling within Trail Creek though, nor do I believe we have ever drilled any part of Trail Creek, could be wrong though. Refer to recent announcements or those screenshots I've included a couple of posts back.
The plan under Chris was never to go after state land to get permitted much faster. I assume that he wasn't knowledgeable enough to know this path, only knowing of Fed permitting. The plan is now to get permitted on state land while pursuing Fed permitting until that eventually gets approval. A wise plan indeed! Don has also shifted focus from merely producing a concentrate to fully separated oxides including heavies + SEG con.
I can't speak to La Paz being on state land, I don't know. And it isn't really relevant until the 2030s now, but is still our second Jewel for sure!
Maybe they'll provide a drilling update next week or wait for the campaign to finish. Depending on when they started I estimate it would take approximately 21 days, so they might provide preliminary results at the end of the month at the latest, assays taking a little longer but would presumably be expedited throwing more money at whoever does those labs for us.
I understand this may read as a negative post, but sometimes one must ask difficult questions. Mediocre questions produce mediocre answers. I will hold Dons' feet to the fire and question this. Tough love is necessary in this regard. However, if the answer I receive is unsatisfactory, I won't post it on our thread and keep that information to myself. I firmly believe the only way to get a satisfactory answer here is if he's asked to clarify this by multiple shareholders.
Again, I'm not trying to be negative in any way here, but everyone should consider context. Pain + Reflection = Progress! I hope everyone here is willing to post this POTENTIALLY painful question to Don. I suspect the blame for this inconsistency lies solely with our former CEO!
I'll still be accumulating regardless of the answer, nor do I think it impacts our development timelines, but it potentially could. Emphasis on potentially! Except for Bat and Kev, the deafening silence on this topic speaks to everyone falling in line following what I'm saying. Ignorance is not bliss.
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