The 30.1Mt JORC was 20.5Mt indicated and 9.6Mt inferred....

The 30.1Mt JORC was 20.5Mt indicated and 9.6Mt inferred. Atlantic decided to include some of this inferred in the scoping study. The scoping study then included 25Mt of ore being mined across 13 years (The starting year at 1.9Mt, 11yrs at 2.0Mt and then one year at 1.1Mt).

Last time Atlantic was effectively prepared to effectively take around half (47%) the inferred balance and all the indicated balance into a production plan. They now have 28Mt across Measured and Indicated. If they added half the 7.4Mt indicated, they would be at 31.7Mt. One permutation involving 31.7Mt is an 11 year mine life at 3Mt/yr with the last year at 1.7Mt. A 3Mt/yr plan appears possible.

Alternatively if Atlantic was again prepared to take 4.5Mt from inferred into the plan they could get to 32.5Mt which would have 10 years at full production and the last year at 2.5Mt. There looks to be a high probability of something around +50% on production volumes. 255kt * 1.5 = 382.5kt/yr.

The wild-card would be if Atlantic decided to compress the mine life further down to a length similar to what Core used in going into production. If Atlantic was aggressive for more production earlier, they might push the boundaries to 4Mt/yr which could still be called a 9 year mine life (8*4 + 0.5). A strategy like this would require confidence in being able to find 4Mt/yr of new JORC resources. Having found 5.2Mt in the last 10 months with a program primarily around infill drilling this is a challenging but not impossible ask. I'd put the probability doubling to 4Mt/yr fairly low (but not zero).