Peer value, page-10

It is how mining works, because they are miners, and they are spending a lot of money to try and do it. Just because their approach is novel doesn't mean it's not mining. But more importantly, it's how basic good business works - get cash flow first, then scale up.

Very interesting discussion though - so thanks for kicking it off. I'm not a mining engineer, but from talks with managemnet, here's what I understand:

Sure other nickel laterite deposits have an oxidised component and are near surface, but with Thirsty it's also about where the cobalt sits in the deposit: 'contained in the manganese mineral asbolane...'.

My understanding of the Thirsty resource is that this bit below  is the important part:

During the test work it was noted in diagnostic analysis of feed and tails samples that 85- 90% of the cobalt was contained in the manganese mineral asbolane, which was less than 1% of the feed. Subsequent test work by RMDSTEM was then focused on selective leaching of this fraction of the ore using sulphur dioxide gas in an atmospheric, low temperature agitated leach.

Hence the thinking is: forget about the whole ore body, go for the easy to access 1%, set up a simple plant to process this and get 85-90% of the most valuable resource first.

But you're suggesting that they have never intended to follow through on the current low capex path - that it's just a ruse to attract capital? Interesting theory, but is seems unlikely. When they can spend $65mil to get 85-90% of the Cobalt in the resource, with the option of coming back for the rest of the nickel later (the processed ore is stockpiled for further extraction of nickel) rather than spend ten times that amount of money + extra planning  + time, then why wouldn't they do this. They build the small/cheap plant, get the most most valuable resource out fast, and while doing this, develop a plan and find money to achieve the more expensive plant if it's viable down the track.



Happy for this to be shown to be incorrect thinking.

Anyone like to call managemnet and see what they have to say on this