I respect your view, however Arena are in the financing business...

I respect your view, however Arena are in the financing business and the economics of the Vanadium - Graphite project simply put the Ruby business MUS were chasing to shame.

Arena were supporting MUS for financing purposes alone, irrespective of the asset class as they weren't really going to be making any money off the ruby sales were they? Please correct me if they were. Arena's most recent $20M funding came after the ruby auction failure.

In my view Arena are / were simply looking to charge above mark rates for finance with the possibility - and this is pure speculation / opinion on my part -  that a failed MUS business would allow them to access some seriously valuable tenements to flip quick. That's a stated objective in Arena's structured finance division.

I think the reason NXE have been waiting is because they've stated they want an equity + offtake deal. Apart from lower financing rates, it also brings customers to the party that have some skin in the game and not leave every aspect of mine development and delivery up to NXE to deliver. NXE might as well try bring in some customer expertise if they can whilst simultaneously securing sales and funding.

That seems a better prospect than having a wolf in sheep's clothing waiting for you to fail.

Of course - as an MUS holder I've lost so much faith in the company that even if I personally handed them the $7M in capex they need, I'd still have my doubts.