First thoughts is that this is good news, bad news and terrible...

First thoughts is that this is good news, bad news and terrible news. A lot more has to be announced to make it good news. And even more has to be announced to make it great news.
What is not being said makes it good news. This is good news for both CLE and EUR. CLE has circa $5M in EUR shares. The BOD has decided not to cash these in and go for a cash raise instead. The EUR shares must have greater potential than the dilution. The current works program is to get some more cores processed into samples to go to the prospective end users. This is not a great amount of money that is required.
So the question is "What is the extra $5M required for?" After the samples are distributed and before the end of Q2, is the establishment of a JV with a tier 1 miner or steel producer. This is for Q3 2024. By end of September. This does not require $5M. Some money has to go back to repaying EUR loan. This extra funding gives some bad news in that they are not expecting the EUR shares to rocket in the immediate future. Good news in that immediately after establishing a JV with a Tier 1 miner, CLE would have to splash some cash. My read is that they are already progressing a JV to have the potential need to splash some cash and that the JV is not a free carry deal. There is some urgency here over and above "let us find a JV partner and see what we have contribute". It is more like that we are talking to parties and we will have to splash some cash.

The next good news is what is said and what is required to be done in the immediate future. A JV partner has changed to a "tier 1 miner or steel producer", before it was just a JV partner. The goal is to get the output up to 100 MTPA. This is outside the immediate demand of a single steel producer so it would be a consortium of producers (unlikely at this stage). Tier 1 miners are Rio Tinto, BHP and Vale with Fortescue as a maybe. But we must remember that part of the sampling process is to get some pelletizing of the samples done. So we need a tier 1 miner with the ability to pelletize. This reduces the field.
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The next thing is the deal for funding. It is a bad deal. It is a diluting deal. It is less than the current value, however more than the diluted value. Given that the stock is unloved at the present, this is new blood and that is a plus. The financiers are only in it the money, they get their 6% fee but their money is in the options. Their big money is paying 3.2 cents for a share and being able to sell them at multiples of this. Thus they have been shown the state of play that is on the table as part of their due diligence. My read then is for the financiers to play a big carrot has been waved in front of them. And they have accepted the carrot. They are not stupid and they do not throw their money away for peanuts.

This is backed up by the rights issue is underwritten. So this finance will be raised and the dilution will happen.

This brings us to the bad news. At present we have an unloved stock. We are getting milestone news, the milestone news is only confirming what was already known. But we are getting no news that instigates buying sentiment. In fact we are getting the opposite. No news instills a selling sentiment. Personally I would sooner no cash raising and use the EUR shares as this was the basis of me buying initially. To make this a good deal, news has to be presented to show that this is an excellent deal. It has to be clearly and precisely laid out where we are now and what is going to happen in the near future. And that we have great upside for being supportive.

CLE has great resource which has a great value. It only has a great value if it can be mined. It only has a great value to CLE if CLE can get the money to mine it. It is impossible for CLE to get the money required to mine it. Thus it is only great value to CLE if some of the resource can be sold for cash and some for capex and getting underway whilst keeping a large percentage of the project. To make this a good news, the BOD have to convince current shareholders that there is value in putting their hands into their pockets and taking up their rights. I need to see something solid to make this good news.

Before too long the argument to support this dilution must be presented to the shareholders. This must be followed shortly after by an indication that the top twenty shareholders are supportive and will be putting their hands into their pockets. Is EUR going to participate? Is Tony going to add some money? What about Winance? What about the legacy holders in the top twenty? We need these answers. (I need some time to do the sums)

The terrible news although necessary is the consolidation. How can the price go lower than what it is? Do a consolidation.

Tony is stepping down from Executive Chairman to Non-Executive Chairman. I trust that will be to a pay that is commensurate with a $17M market cap company.

Will I be taking up the rights issue? Maybe, I don't know yet. I do need some convincing. If I need convincing then a lot of others will need convincing.