I can’t remember when they were issued but the idea of options...

I can’t remember when they were issued but the idea of options is to give management or select investors the chance of buying cheap shares as a thank you or an incentive for them to invest.
In this case, we have 180m options at 5.3c, so if our shares were to rise to say 7 cents by 3 August, then management could “exercise” their options i.e. buy the shares for 5.3 cents and then sell them straight away for 7 cents, hence making a profit of 1.7 c per share. Quick easy money if the shares are worth that much. HOWEVER, at the moment the shares are only 3.3 c, they are” out of the money” and hence there is no incentive for those investors or management to buy them and they will expire worthless. Also the options are a way of raising money for the company. In this case 180m shares at 5.3 c would raise about $9.5 m, which would be great for mine expansion, equipment purchases etc.
Hope that kind of explains it a bit.