Sorry, perhaps I wasn't explaining myself clearly. This is my understanding (with of course the idea that Ausmex and Tombola are synonymous):
Sometime in 2018 (possibly 2017) Ausmex entered into a JV agreement with Round Oak to process ore at their plant in Cloncurry. The JV agreement was a 80/20 split in Ausmex's favour, with Round Oak being the first option for ore processing. My understanding is that Round Oak is one of two available gold processing plants in the Cloncurry area, the second being at Lorena. There may be other plants, but my understanding is that these are the only two that Ausmex would have access to, and Ausmex have never mentioned Lorena.
Round Oak Minerals is a wholly owned subsidiary of WHSP. In August 2021 Tombola were still saying that they were processing ore at Round Oak. Between August and October, Round Oak sold the processing plant to some other party. The JV agreement is between Ausmex and Round Oak, for the ore to be processed by Round Oak at their Cloncurry plant. Round Oak no longer own the plant. The JV agreement cannot be fulfilled, so while Round Oak is the first option, they will have to cede that option. That leaves Tombola without ore processing facilities, so they will either have to:
- Negotiate with Lorena (which has never been mentioned, and may well still be in use to process high grade ore from Laneway Resources), or
- Build their own processing facility
Now, Tombola have been talking about Mt Freda "processing" plant, so they may well have the intention of installing a crusher and associated infrastructure themselves... but they have never mentioned this. They also fell eerily quiet about Round Oak after August.
I have drawn my own conclusions from this, they could be right, could be wrong. DYOR and GLTAH
