Ann: POSCO Signs Cooperation Agreement, page-63

For EGR projects to proceed they need key precursor items including permits, financing, customer commitments, a robust idea of the capital/operational costs and a management team that can deliver. Only when these are all in place is it prudent to FID the project. Some projects also require source material as a precursor to FID and this will be the case for a purification plant if it comes online before Epanko.

I don't think is a coincidence that a week before this POSCO announcement there was an announcement strengthening the board of EGR. I suspect that POSCO decided that if they were going to sign a cooperation agreement, a stronger governance structure was needed. EGR finally gave in to this demand and POSCO signed the cooperation agreement. Who knows how long a stalemate situation existed before this.

You are correct that the announcement makes good progress on customer commitments for end product, financing and the technical capability of delivering the project (there was also a phrase around using POSCO engineering and construction abilities). The elephant in the room is however whether this management team can deliver. The term lifestyle company has been bandied around and understandably given the lack of progress beyond MoU's. Large upwards share price movements are possible if the market regains confidence in management to deliver, but that's not going to be easy.