Yeah it’s odd. But given it was after the trading halt you’d...

Yeah it’s odd.

But given it was after the trading halt you’d have to presume the company knew the state of the agreement already, hence why they were making the announcement to begin with.
I’m not sure who runs their social sites but to me it suggested it’s not management directly.

Anyway, I’m still convinced it’s IO uncertainty that has led to the delay though. I read this line below in the announcement as possibly a subtle acknowledgement of that, ie the emphasis on the stronger demand and prices expected for HBI/Pig Iron, perhaps to try and provide some reassurance to shareholders that in the longer term the company isn’t exposed to the volatility of DSO prices that’s causing all the havoc for IO juniors now.

”The significant ‘value added’ opportunity for Magnum will be the delivery of HBI and Pig Iron from the Project (“Phase 2”), which attracts a significantly higher price with strong customer demand compared to DSO (“Phase 1”) that is linked to the internationally traded export iron ore price.”

Regarding capital raise possibility, they pushed the exclusivity period out to November and in doing so have essentially said we are doing a deal with Anglo or we’re not mining come December (i.e it’d presumably take another couple months at least to find and finalise an offtake with another buyer if Anglo fell through, which would push the projected timeline out).

They mentioned the terms hadn’t changed, presumably that meant the $8M prepayment was still on the table.
So basically I don’t see why they’d capital raise anytime prior to at least November, given they seem to fully expect the prepayment will be forthcoming to get started.

But I do think a capital raise would still be on the cards more so now, than before the IO price started diving, given it seems far less likely they’ll get the kind of prices and cash flow now that they were expecting in Phase 1. I just think it’d only follow a signed offtake at this point so wouldn’t be till some time later.