How about those 'Sophisticated Investors' Why would they be so...

How about those 'Sophisticated Investors' Why would they be so eager to throw their money into the hat? Maybe they know more than us mere mortals

Perhaps they have been doing a bit of research.

Auroch spent $4my to get 80%, of the Nepean Project. That's a very interesting story for another time. Since then, I would estimate they have spent a further $1.5m-3m during the last year mostly re-drilling both The Nepean Crown Pillar ore body and along strike north and south of the Nepean Mine. The initial drill program, on the Crown Pillar was focused on twinning hi-grade intercepts previously announced 15 years ago. They targeted a classic Kambalda Style hi-grade Ni Pod known as a basalt-basalt pinch out zone, I am graciously assuming that the intent was to upgrade the results to conform with the 2012 Jorc code, which doesn't make sense, as the holes drilled were in the middle of a proven orebody that was the basis for a BFS study in 2008. The quality of the data for a BFS is generally much higher than what's required for the 2012 Jorc Code. In addition they stepped out to the north and south with drill programs based on historic publicly available Regional Airborn Magnetics and geology as if it hasn't been done previously by several companies. Once that was completed, they followed up with geophysics for targeting anomalies, which they are now drilling. If my memory serves me correctly, most of this was already done some 15 years ago, but it is true, technology has advanced in the meantime. However most of the targets were already defined. Not saying it was wasted but why would you be doing exploration when you already had a BFS defined Mine, ready to go, which only needed costing updates. This is all public info, it's been sitting there since the Ni price crashed, around 2010 The BFS was completed when the Ni price was about a third of what it is today, and if the pundits are correct that Ni will or already is "The Super-Future of Green Energy" which is headed for the stars when the climate change, build back better mob, take control. Now it appears that Auroch is doubling down on that greenie forecast and is jumping onto the Li bandwagon looking for Li hiding in the stacked, multiple, thick pegmatite lenses intruding the ore body, that was recently announced.Good luck with that, because back in 2000-2004 Nepean belonged to Austminex (ATX) which later morphed into FML, and they had a mining engineer as a director, who just happened to be the managing director of Greenbushes the largest Li Mine in Australia. He wouldn't miss that, but those pegmatites contain plenty of pretty pink almandine garnets. Now they have just blown out shareholders equity with a $8my 'Sophisticated Investors' raising, to do scoping studies. Hello, why would they do another scoping study, when nothing really material has changed since the last one 14 years ago except the costing and Ni price. That study was followed by another one, which was followed by a PFS, which justified, doing a BFS. So maybe those 'Investors' have been doing some research.
So the big question is: Why are they wasting money on exploration 10kms along strike looking for new mines and redoing scoping studies with expensive Metallurgical drill/testing, which will be followed by mine design/open pit optimizations/UG reserves and so on, when it's already been done? The Resource/Reserve has been handed to them on a platter, ready to go. Get it ready for production so when the price takes off your into the money and can afford to look for those classic Kambalda style Ni mine clusters and giving dividends rather than taking money from your shareholders. Anyway this is a WTF situation which doesn't make sense considering the quality and potential of the asset.