We really need to see what aspects of TMT's EPA submission can be carried over... Just so many moving pieces right, who can know?
If they end up running with TMT's already proposed/engineered plant, then you can imagine it could almost be approved with no additional submissions and their production timeline not far off..
But that entirely excludes AVL's plant offsite, AVL's considerable different flowsheet for different ore, that cannot just be fed into TMT's processing plant, so essentially excluding AVL's share of the orebody.
The hard facts, and the tough pill to swallow here for everyone who has already waited a long time for either of these companies to get to a pointy end,,, is that if it makes the most sense to merge companies to reach production, then it also makes the most sense to genuinally merge the orebodied and look at it all fresh again, work out once and for all if onsite or offsite processing is a better option, and work out a single flow sheet, or maybe a 'modular/expandable' flowsheet that could have a lower initial capex and opex to process the high quality southern ore, ensuring (as best it can be assured) profitable first several years including Payback done and dusted, then expanded to AVL's optimized/patent flowsheet for the oxidized ore, which TMT also has quite a bit of but I believe was discarded from their processing model.
Point being, it makes the most sense to spend the next 6 to 12 Months ironing all of these details out (integrating), and what it means for EPA, hopefully just amendments to what has already been 90% approved, if it even works like that, and however far that sets the timelines back,,, it IS what is required to maximize the combined entity.
Again this is a tough pill to swallow, and when there were merger discussions here just after RCF bought in, it was my biggest voiced concern and negative if a merger did happen, is we will most likely see a new timelime that is 1 to 2 years or more added on what TMT might have been looking at otherwise..
How anyone including Graham can be declaring a 2025 production date still, even with all of the unknowns, he either knows a lot that we don't,,, or my bigger fear, he is 100% fine with spinning BS to shareholders for the sake of maintianing sentiment, or he stays ignorant to realities so can believe 2025 is realistic even with integration, plant and flowsheet design/finalization, feed studies, offtake, finance, and all epa approvals sewn up AND boots on the ground to start construction, all in the next 12 Months.
That is extreme optimism. I would love it to be correct though, so i'll leave my thoughts there.
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