@danbraster you are totally on the mark with your post and I...

@danbraster you are totally on the mark with your post and I commend your investigative and also your analytical skills here.

@straw_woods to address some of your concerns.
Please understand that while we are trying to be as open and transparent with shareholders as we can, sometimes we cannot say things we would like to due to commercial and other sensitivities and confidentiality. This was the case with the coal project and this is why it has not been on our infrastructure solutions map etc... until this latest company update. We were not trying to hide the investment or anything. As part of the PFS as we stated in Tuesday's announcement we are looking at numerous power options and the coal project is just one of those. The decision to invest was made for all the reasons in @danbraster's post. We do not invest in random companies, only companies which we think have the potential to benefit Estelle.

As for the strategic review, we announced that we were doing this review, or due diligence, on the current flowsheet back in August last year and shareholders had been requesting to know the results of the review. It is not a list of potential headlines. The review was done to take a completely fresh look at the current flowsheet before the PFS to see what other studies we should perform as part of the PFS level studies. Remember the PFS more less gives you the design of the mine, plant etc that will go for permitting so you want to take your time and get it right, rather than rush and make mistakes like some companies have done pushing to just get into production quickly. Like danbradster said we want a mine that will be optimal and profitable for a long time as it is a huge investment to build a mine. The mining engineers we used in the scoping studies were very pro the ore sorters and they do have exceptional recoveries from the testing we have done to date, but with the review looking specifically at ways to reduce capex and opex, increase recoveries and production, and also trying to bring production forward we brought on METS Engineering, who have been amazing, to go through the whole flow sheet and advise of what PFS studies we should do. That review identified some of the issues with the previously low level heap leach test work which was performed a number of years ago, such a not crushing enough and not looking at other leaching options, and so we are now doing test work on that on the large 1 tonne bulk samples we sent to Perth late last year. It also identified that multi-sensor ore sorters might give an even better uplift so we are testing that. As a result of the investigation into antimony and other critical minerals which we found in last year's surface sampling results and a re-examination of historical multi-element samples, and the discussions with UAF and the Dod, DoE, etc.. , we found that there is a huge need for these and the US has no domestic supply of some of them but wants to sure one up, and they potentially have the ability to attract govt funding to assist with exploration etc (see perpetua), so again we are now testing CM extraction options in the flow sheet too. None of these are "embedded in the development timeline" just yet as the PFS is the document which will do this. The review was purely done to identify from a completely fresh look what studies for testing should be done for the PFS, and in that respect IMO it has been very successful, but it is the results of that testing now that will determine if or what changes need to be made in the PFS flowsheet and then they will be "embedded in the development time line".

As for your statement about explaining why the time line pushed out I agree and have taken that onboard, but we thought the slide adding in the extra boxes for the "Metallurgical Test Work on Gold, Antimony & Critical Minerals (CM)" ,as well as the 2 other new bullet points on the same slide "Ongoing studies and test work – For Gold, and now additional work for the extractionof Antimony & CM" as well as "Antimony & CM bi-product analysis, would be self explanatory as to why the timeline pushed out.

In reading your post again I get the feeling that you mistakenly thought that the strategic review was designed to give the path forward rather than provide a fresh due diligence on the flowsheet and make recommendations for testing to potentially improve the flow sheet for the PFS, which is the document that will ultimately give the path forward for permitting.

Hopefully this helps clarify more for you. Both the heap leach with its low cost and potential to increase gold production from millions of tons of ore that under the current flowsheet is going to waste, and the potential bi-product credits from the CM's (let alone hopefully some grants) could both be game changers for the project in the PFS and hence the need to now test them which has commenced.