Ann: Hillgrove Gold-Antimony Project Pre-Feasibility Study, page-85

I'll believe government backing for critical minerals when I see it. All very well for politicians to stand around in hard hats and hi-vis vests making announcables but when the rubber hits the road and it comes to permits and tough decisions they all turn to water. Most politicians and their advisors couldn't even find these things on the periodic table, let alone understand the economics and how mining financing and operations work.

The open-cut development won't be huge, but its visual impact might attract the attention of the few but vocal NIMBY's and tree changers who could possibly disrupt the restart/consultation/permitting phase. Armidale isn't a community familiar with hard rock mining and I would bet many tree changers would have left the cities and brought cheap land/real estate in Hillgrove, they won't appreciate open pit operations nearby. The access corridor to the new TSF will be the one to watch and any expansion to the existing TSF will be the tricky one to get by the regulators who will throw up the most random specious arguments and conditions at the last minute, as is their reputation.

This doesn't look like Telfer to me, that was a world-class low-grade bulk tonnage orebody out in the middle of nowhere, this is a high-grade underground narrow stope gold-antimony project in NE NSW with its own geographical and historical challenges. Grade might be king but people need to look at the other stuff like underground mining costs/development and the economies of scale with narrow underground mining and balance that up.

Sorry to be a voice of caution/reason here. Restarts are never easy anywhere, especially in today's inflationary environment, and always go over budget, I do appreciate the sunk capital costs here, and the unfortunate timing of past operators like RVR, but I have found in my experience that restarting things that have been previously owned by Straits Resources to always come with some unpleasant surprises. I wouldn't rely on good drill announcements to push a share price up forever, the market is fickle and has a short attention span - just ask DEG shareholders what 2 years of awesome drill announcements gets you.

I just saw the interview with Ron Heeks and he makes some good points, I have a small holding here and wish him all the best of luck, there is no doubt about the quality of the orebody (despite it depletions and challenges to mine) and it will be good to see it drilled out comprehensively and they should do that. The project is very advanced but still not as simple a matter as pressing the go button, the regulators always get the last say, although that would be nice given where gold and antimony prices are at the moment.