This announcement actually caught me by surprise, as I had assumed that as the Hamersley Iron Ore Project tenements were held in good standing when Equinox purchased 100% interest over Mining Licence M47/1450, all prior agreements also would have been transferred based on a mining licence that is current and, WFE/PF1
(i) had an Indigenous Land Use Access (ILUA) agreement with the Eastern Guruma People (WGAC) the terms of which allowed the granting of,
(ii) the Native Title Deed Agreement which therefor allowed the granting of,
(iii) Mining Lease 47/1450 which has allowed the
(iv) Western Australian Mines Department to grant a permit for an exploration drilling campaign to commence before February 2022
(v) the Company (WFE/PF1) also had a Future Act Determination
** under the Native Title Act 1993 and,
(vi) a Site Clearance and Heritage schedule that was previously distributed to all parties
~ more reasoning as to why I thought these agreements were still in place, 23rd December 2020 PF1 announced a Hamersley Iron Ore project work program and on the 2nd February 2021 announced a Drilling Contractor for a 7 hole in-fill drilling program, considering PF1 intended to progress to drilling indicates that the agreements and permits were all still valid ......
~ I suspect that as Equinox have now planned a drilling campaign for Q2 2022, an extension to the current WA Mines permit will be needed?
** The purpose of the Future Act Determination is to seek to have any matters determined or arbitrated by the National Native Title Tribunal in the absence of any agreements being reached with the affected Native Title party, in this instance being the Wintawari Guruma Aborigine Corporation or WGAC
@Justadabble from your previous post: "Interested in the highly concentrated program map, feels like they know where the most valuable resource sits."
~ If they wanted to know where the most valuable part of the resource is, they only needed to read the "Independent Geologist Report" in their own IPO Prospectus, it was all in Gifford's narrative ~ but, lets just pay more consultants to tell us what we really should have known, also considering the bio's of some of management, they also should have known were to stick the drills in ..........
~ Shakes My Head, I could get a job reading to them at bed time the extracts from their own announcements ....
I get that the dynamics of the region has changed substantially since (WFE) PF1 conducted the Scoping Study/Mine Gate Study, Infrastructure and Logistics Study and Product Viability testing - spitting out recommendations, etc. Gifford's narrative in the Independent Report does make some simplistic recommendations to progress the project at a bit quicker pace than what currently is being achieved.
I mean, it was such a well written, fluffy, feel good announcement: Native Title Agreement for something I believe they already had?? (based on the above) maybe they just had to go shake hands and say "we are the new kids on the block?"
Bottom line it will be approximately (considering a 6 - 8 week turnaround for lab results) mid June (at the earliest) before any announcement of substance is released. I mean, it is pointless progressing the other studies until results of the drilling / met work are known, or conversely throw everything at the logistic and infrastructure studies - dig up the "defined" ore and sell it at the gate (if they can find a buyer) to make money for the next phases of "going mining"> > > or get your hands in your pockets because IMO they will need to raise as early as next year .....
Iron Ore price has increased daily over the last 7 days, I will still stick with the Australian Chief economist predictions of $80 for 2022
From data collected in WFE announcements, the Iron Ore price for Hamersley to be viable was the $100 m/t benchmarked Fe ~ 62%, some work to be done to get the Fe up on Hamersley Ore but also addressing the high impurities .....
cheers