Slyvestor - to answer your question - if you look at it, late...

Slyvestor - to answer your question - if you look at it, late last July they made the maiden DSO resource with ~$90m revenue on ~$3m capex. You see the spike from the market then. Essentially, everyone knows the stuff is there - the risk is whether it can be got. There is real heat in the Tarkine campaign - if you check out this website from the "Tarkine National Coalition" (TNC), you can see VMS is mentioned as having submitted permits http://tarkine.org/

Both GetUp and TNC want permanent Heritage protection and claim the Australia Heritage Council made a recommendation to protect the Tarkine.

This is from GetUp a few hours ago: http://www.indymedia.org.au/2012/04/19/update-dont-mine-the-tarkine

Some older local news:
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2012/01/13/291941_tasmania-news.html

Don't under-estimate the level of heat in this right now. If you want, you could contact Tony Burke directly.

Ultimately, this is why the market isn't spiking like last year. It is almost a 50-50 punt which way it will go, but given the Labor government in Tasmania has recommended mining to proceed in Tarkine, plus Federal Labour is looking to differentiate themselves from the Greens, I lean towards approval (plus my own cognitive bias leans me that way too).

DYOR of course - there is no doubt that the VMS share price is held back purely on regulatory risk. A mining permit safe from any court challenge would double the share price at a minimum. Permit denial and its total shareholder destruction - 90% value or more lost.