I knew you were speculating, just strange you seeing RIO's...

I knew you were speculating, just strange you seeing RIO's invisible hand at work in a typical and expected Cr for this stage of a developer? For the life of me I can;t see why any major would move first or so early on WA1... makes no tactical or strategic sense for risk adverse big boys. Why did RIO hand back the JV tenements for a small royalty? Maybe for the same reason BHP walked from the Elliott Copper JV... decided there was probably nothing there.

As you say, they were there in 2021 before Luni was discovered and probably had IOCG copper in mind. RIo are iron ore miners not steel producers, yet, so there's no great vertical integration model worth pursuing. If and when they produce green steel and want to go all the way up downstream to Nb-structural steel... why not just buy whatever small quantity of FeNb they need from whoever is operating Luni.

The fate of WA1's share price probably hinges on some obvious outcomes imo:

• development and global acceptance of a new use for Nb, like batteries
• competing Nb deposits like ENR might find will crowd the market further and reduce WA1's unicorn value-status
• further WA1 exploration success that can drive the price higher (like it did last year)
• Hope for WA1 takeover or major JV M&A
• LS curve gravity if/when hope for M&A upside drags on and sellers outnumber buyers over years

Regards a WA1 TO, the big boys would rather wait and see juniors grind out the studies, negotiate the NT agreement etc and generally de-risk the project. Big boys are high-cost operators and fat targets for grifters. Further, by waiting some years to move, most often the developers share price tracks lower and lower, softening up shareholders to be less greedy and accept a more reasonable TO offer (ie cheaper). If they are really interested, why not keep their powder dry and move only if someone else moves first? If it ends up in a bidding war, well it was always going to end up in a bidding war regardless of when you move. I admit it is very intriguing and i like ruminating and speculating on these things, even if I have no skin in the game...

Good luck with your optimism