Seems highly likely to me this goes the way of HIO, and the...

Seems highly likely to me this goes the way of HIO, and the project ends up on ice. The share consolidation is hopium. If institutional investors don't like the project now at $68M market cap, they won't like it regardless of whether there's 3.7B shares on issue, or 75M shares on issue. It's just a distraction (and an excuse to be able to raise more capital at ever-lower prices).

The project itself is following the HIO model:
1. increase scale of the project
2. "timing for completion of the subsequent refocused DFS will be determined"

That last sentence is the most telling line in the whole quarterly.

Current market cap at 1.8c is $68M market cap. The capex estimates from the PFS back in July 2021 was $572M to $675M. It will now be even higher due to a) inflation and b) increased scale. The project is most likely entirely uneconomical right now and I think once they've finished this optimisation malarkey, it will get put on ice, just as HIO did. That's what bear markets do - they whittle out the projects that deserve capital, and those that don't. Apologies for the bluntness but it seems pretty obvious to me, even moreso when your far more popular cousin has just gone through this exact scenario.