@12Percent ... Excellent summary and yes we all need to be...

@12Percent ... Excellent summary and yes we all need to be reminded of all the metrics as we have such an outstanding opportunity here.

In the last WA1 presentation the breakdown of shares held was board an management 21%, Tali Resources 13%, institutions and HNW individuals 46% and "other investors" (retail) 20%.

This does not leave much for the shorters making an exit, as the 20% retail is only 13.4 million shares, and the total still short is 1.34 million shares, so the shorters would have to buy 10% of all retail shares, or perhaps hope for some distressed insto/HNW individual to cough up shares.
They certainly are not getting any of my shares at these prices and this most likely applies to most posters here..

In terms of what we have from all the drilling results, a couple of separate starter pits will give us a high grade core of 20-40 million tonnes at between 2.5% - 4% grade. Exactly what the company experts are looking at/for we still don't know, but most likely somewhere in this range..

Now consider somewhere around the middle of this range, 30 million tonnes at around 3% grade.

A 1 MT/a plant gives a 30 year mine life, producing around 15,000 tonnes of Ferroniobium at just a 50% recovery (which we have already exceeded).
This revenue is around US$600,000,000 or $A900,000,000, with a high profit margin as we'd have the highest grade mine in the world, higher than CBMM's 2.5% current mined grade. This is all before thinking about any other products.

The cheapest capital and most economic pathway is to just produce Ferroniobium to start with, then add 'other' processes later from cashflow, unless we were to get large subsidies/grants from outside (Govt?) to build extra processing at the initial stage.

As you have correctly pointed out, CBMM have welcomed other mines and looked after them, as multiple mines raises the overall demand and confidence in Niobium supply. I can easily see that CBMM would be very willing to work with us with this mine, and possibly even be a partner in it, up to whatever Australian Govt/regulators will allow percentage wise.

Would a 20-25% interest be worth $A1,000,000,000 to build the mine and extra processing plant at Port Hedland? Considering $80M return pa on a 20% interest, before allowing for higher recoveries, any expansion, or any by products of phosphate or REEs, seems like a great deal, for many, many companies.

Management here has been very methodological in their approach, which I think has been perceived as 'weakness' by the shorters, but they must be coming to the realisation, the world economy is not collapsing with tariffs or whatever else, and as more studies higher grade core MRE means greater options for a well cashed up WA1....