Paul thinks the Permit of Exploitation (mining lease)...

Paul thinks the Permit of Exploitation (mining lease) application will take 6-12 months from application. The application would be made ~12 months before anticipated production commencement.

Personally, I’d like to see the application go in earlier. The momentum is there in government right now. The scoping study by WA apparently is quite detailed and could quickly be augmented with supporting docs for an application. We are only part way through environmental baseline data collection, but it’s normal to apply before these are done then update the application when all data is received.

It feels like momentum is building nicely. Graeme Hunt seems solid and his appointment to me confirms that the project will be built. Everyone I spoke to at Noosa mining conference in November reckoned the project is compelling and AKO is due a share price breakout at some point.

The share price breakout catalyst is a probably the combination of:

1. Resource growth to give >7 years DSO production before transition to processing magnetite ore
2. Demonstrating in the PFS that the transition to processing low grade magnetite is self funded out of DSO earnings
3. Application for a mining permit which shows intent
4. Positive signals on project financing discussions.

Or it could just happen one day by itself. Stranger things have happened.