Ann: Butcherbird Manganese Project Operational Update, page-75

At this stage there is a lot of evidence around late delivery, but I'm not seeing anything that the HPMSM work is unfavourable:

• The 29 April investor presentation pack noted "Stage 3 High Purity Mn PFS study anticipated for completion 2021"
• The 23 June presentation pack noted "Stage 2 Expanded Mn concentrate for MnSO4, PFS study near complete, fully funded, Startup 2024/25". (This was repeated in 8 July and 28 September investor presentations).
• The 25th August announcement stated "Further updates will be released to the market as this work progresses, including the PFS documentation that is expected to show the exciting commercial potential around the Company's current concentrate product to battery grade HPMSM..."
• 28 Oct update "The development team believe that this latest work is of critical importance to maximising the economics of the HPMSM conversion facility and the decision has been taken to ensure that this new breakthrough flowsheet modification is included in the Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) work that is expected to demonstrate the exciting commercial potential around the conversion of the Company's current concentrate product to battery grade HPMSM to power the electrification of the global vehicle fleet. Timing of the PFS will therefore be delayed until 2022 however the results of this latest work are believed to be material and should be included in the final flowsheet design for the PFS."
• 4 Nov Update stated "The company anticipates releasing a Scoping Study in Q4 2021 prior to the release of the PFS in H1 2022."
• 13 Dec Update stated "In addition to the concentrate export business, the Company has completed extensive research & development and laboratory test work into the production of high purity manganese products including battery grade manganesesulphate (HPMSM) and High Purity Electrolytic Manganese Metal (HPEMM). The work has highlighted that the Butcherbird ores are highly amenable to an ambient temperature, atmospheric pressure leach process, resulting in a very efficient extraction of the manganese into solution, the key requirement for the cost effective and sustainable production of HPMSM and HPEMM."
• Mid-Dec Proactive video @ 1min 28 states "the slightly revised schedule was for a PFS in Q1 2022 because we made some engineering changes to, or flowsheet changes to the process which had some substantial improvement on economics but obviously require required quite a bit of re-engineering so what we have undertaken to present a scoping level document this quarter which will give our investors a first taste of what the economic opportunity might look like around the Manganese sulphate opportunity which we see as one of the most exciting bits of the business."

So the PFS was planned for 2021 and is now 1st half 2022. The aim is Q1, but given current progress is more likely in Q2. The possible wild-card is that the PFS is sufficiently close to completion it will be dropped instead of the scoping doc.

There's nothing in these updates implying any sort of critical problem, just that preparing and finalising the PFS/Scoping study is taking longer than expected. Words like "very efficient" are always good, but their value is diluted when other commitments are not delivered upon. I guess shareholders will just have to wait a bit longer for the Scoping study, PFS and then the DFS.