A relatively common scenario in Canada and US is that Juniors do...

A relatively common scenario in Canada and US is that Juniors do the exploration and feasibility studies and are then bought out. This is apparently more common than in Australia.

I personally think the best outcome for shareholders is a buyout or a strong JV, particularly for a large scale project. Scenario here would be to define a resource and reserve of the scale to interest the majors and then complete a Feasibility Study.

If it was just a 1 to 2 Moz project than they could look at developing it themselves. CAPEX would be more achievable. NVA are thinking in the 10 Moz to 20 Moz range though and that's been quite clear. That would mean a reserve in the 5 Moz to 10 Moz range.

I posted some thoughts in this thread on where I think they should aim. I think an asset capable of producing > 1 Moz pa.

https://hotcopper.com.au/posts/40371980/single

That would be more than 3 x Gruyere's (GOR) which is a project that would be producing 300 koz pa.

Let's assume bottom-end 12 year mine life and 1 Moz pa.

That's 12 Moz of Reserves. They would need a resource of 20 Moz if they convert 60% of resource to reserve.

They already have 2.5 Moz at Oxide Korbel and think they could get this to > 5 Moz Resource. I think they can comfortably do 2 Moz at RPM. That would be 7.5 Moz at just two prospects.

We have numerous other prospects they can investigate.