Great find bob, thanks.
360,000t = starting a 2 Million tonne/a process plant.
This might appear small to some, given the resource size, but it leaves plenty of options open for the company. As experience shows from other junior explorers, you need to start at a reasonable size, not try and start too big (SDL, RXM etc they got nowhere).
Some initial offtakes with large (influential) battery companies, once resource is drilled out should hopefully hurry up the road build. IMO that is the really essential part of infrastructure to finish.
The hydro scheme gets mentioned as a source of power by all the companies in the area, plus there is a decent population to also service, so generators will be needed for the process plant. Large quantities of fuel will be needed for both mining fleet and processing plant, hence the importance of the road.
Overall this is a longer term project than many initially envisaged, but should also be more profitable in the long run.
With the first quality road built, a 2Mt/a plant under construction, then expansion plans can get underway with 5Mt/a then 10Mt/a plants, as both the companies finances and growth in the industry allow (plus growing needs of offtake partners). Probably talking 5-10 years to get to a larger output. Also long term drilling plans to fully understand the entire resource will take years and possibly over 1 million metres of drilling. Most of that can wait for first cashflow in a few years.
One aspect I'm finding a little frustrating at present is the 2nd 20,000m of mostly infill drilling being talked about, but no drilling company has been signed up for it yet. The first 20,000m drill program was signed in October last year, yet took months to start. IMO it would be very poor to have the drills leave the site, to only come back several months later, because it took so long to get the drilling organised. Sign them up now so they can start/continue the drilling during the dry season. The geologists onsite will know where the infill needs to be before the final assays come back.
Not signing up the drill contractors yet for the next drill phase is not consistent with 'fast tracking'.
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