As others have said, this is more to do with internal politics...

As others have said, this is more to do with internal politics and varying corporate priorities and big company internal hurdles within Newcrest, and the recent takeover offer from Newmont. The JV with AZY and Tetris would be about priority 9,999,999 out of the 1 million "To Do" lists of whoever is in charge of Newcrest. Higher priority would be disposing of non-core assets and mounting a takeover defense.

Got to remember that Newcrest has had doubts about Telfer as an ongoing profitable operation (and that's something in production!), not to mention that Haverion is deep and under hundreds of meters of barren cover, and guess what else is under 300m of cover? Tetris.

No one is rushing out to drill high-risk exploration drill holes under 300-500m of cover in the middle of b^&f#@k no-where, even Rio is having second thoughts about Winu.

Nice to have the ground back in AZY portfolio but realistically, they have enough ground with no cover, or less much cover, that is much higher priority for a small company like AZY.