Hi OreyThe best thing about the finance deal is they are in no...

Hi Orey

The best thing about the finance deal is they are in no way obliged to take up the $200M. If they can fund it through either debt or through off takes then they can simply forgo the option and prevent any unnecessary dilution. I also think they will likely be trading at much higher valuations later this year (I am really looking forward to the completion of the pilot plant and subsequent undeniable proof of concept and the response to the samples produced) so that also would reduce dilution if the they do use the option. Its essentially great to have in case there is a credit crunch and will protect HIO from going belly up due to running out of funds. I can't see a negative there.

And I am sure there are other IO projects but there are not that many in the 67%+ range. Its really only a hand full and most are earlier stage then HIO.
The growth in green steel or IO products to be added to scrap iron is projected to be very large and will be nowhere near fulfilled. Most hematite IO is not suitable at all for EAF's and even the high grade stuff would need significant (and energy consuming/expensive) processing to be made suitable so these are highly unlikely to be competitive with high grade magnetite.
The IO bench marks only differ 4 and 3% (58%, 62% and 65%) so yes 1 or two percent make quite a difference. To my knowledge there are no projects other then HIO capable of producing above 68.5% IO concentrate so HIO is still the best available. That is a genuine competitive advantage!
I am confident companies will be very keen to sign an off take for the very highest grade IO with very low impurities and produced in a very save jurisdiction! The green steel outlook is much more bullish now then it was in 2017 so I believe we can do better then the deals signed back then, possibly with the same companies.

And I didn't say there wouldn't be hurdles. Any start up company regardless of sector will have hurdles.

I am just not seeing any hurdles that I think can stop HIO going to production and ultimately becoming a very successful, highly profitable miner producing IO products that are the best in class for producing green steel and thereby helping to improve the environment and the future of our species.

The economics as per the PFS are simply better then any other mining project I have seen. The location is perfect. The outlook for green steel is very very bullish. Management has been outstanding since solving the JV issues and getting rid of a few bad apples.

What more can you hope for in a junior miner?

And who cares the share price has retraced a little? Its meaningless unless you sell. We where trading in the mid 7c range only a few short months ago. The trend is clearly up. I bought my first parcel of HIO (CAP at that time) for 4.6c...And the MC was 12M! That is just about 8 or 9 months ago!
We are now at 18c and the MC is around $130M...That means the company is now worth nearly 11x from well under 1 year ago! And I think we might match that 11x again over the next year.

Just don't expect it to go in a straight line, it never does!