I'm glad not to have BHP involved here, even if it seemed like...

I'm glad not to have BHP involved here, even if it seemed like its free money. If a company manages to find something that interests BHP, then BHP would expect something in return such as a jv.

Having held small exploration companies that have signed what seems like good jv deals with large companies, they've generally not benefitted from the experiences.

Large companies will spend money on a jv project but the deals are generally largely back-ended with very little cash being spent in the first 2-3 years. By the time they undertake studies etc at their higher spend rate, they own 50% or more of the project, which is what these deals are all about. They wish to tie up any potentially good ground and then do just enough to fulfill jv obligations. It stops other companies from doing similar and once they sew the ground up, they ignore it mostly and then do very little on-ground exploration, preferring to charge a high rate for in-house services until they assess the potential and have control of the asset, or dump it

Sometimes deals in the 10s of millions of dollars get canned 3 years down the track as not meeting the larger company's criteria, with only a minimal amount ever having been spent

Nothing is for nothing and NXM should've done as planned, then look for a proactive growing company to get involved if early exploration showed potential. They need a company looking for a project to help lift them to the next level rather than have their project virtually land-banked by a major imo.

So now NXM needs to follow through with the intended drilling if they believe its good ground or drop the lot and get back to adding value to the gold projects. Prove the battery metal thesis is real and not just a deflection from not living up to the market's expectation, built up from many fine words and pictures of NST nearology.

If NXM can get some strong results from the battery metals exploration (unemcumbered by BHP or anyone else), they may be able to ipo it and concentrate on monetising their main asset

With the Xplor grant now off the table and a plan in place, I now consider NXM a buy at the current price of 4c or less.

Just my thoughts