Sounds reasonable. Either way, we have the critical catalyst of...

Sounds reasonable.

Either way, we have the critical catalyst of funding that is the key.
They can target a window, sure, but ultimately the size of that window is massively variable. Massively.
That doesn’t mean they can’t lay out the key tasks and milestones, and clarify anticipated timing of those with less uncertainty. For sure.

As far as the funding goes, I presume they know that they’ll be damned if they do and damned if they don’t provide some guidance wrt timing.
The age-old challenge of project management…ask me how I know lol.

Imo one “solution” to perhaps better incorporate this uncertainty with the funding component is to map out tasks and timing on a duration basis (ie how many weeks/months expected for each, and presenting the “secure funding” component with a broader range or even “blank” wrt duration.
This might better communicate the uncertainty and remove “fixed dates”‘from the guidance… what we’d then have is a “timeline” that shows eg x months for FEED, x months for detailed engineering, etc, then a “placeholder” of sorts for the funding catalyst, followed by subsequent x-month periods for post FID tasks/development.

That way we can perhaps have more clarity wrt x months expected before we have “everything” in place to best pursue funding, and then that it should take x months after funding is secured to get the plant constructed.

I’ve done similar in the past for projects for various miners where the timing of their internal funding commitments was highly uncertain and highly variable - was a good way to communicate “known” task duration amidst other uncertainty, and avoided the customer (internal) focussing unrealistically on some specific “end date”.

It’s never a straightforward process when major milestones are so uncertain. It reminds me of the old saying - all models are wrong; some models are useful.
Perhaps a new one is all guidance is wrong, some guidance is useful….?
lol.


Thoughts?

imo
Dyor