@qball - I am inclined to agree with you that another announcement is being prepared, so that both the price query response and drilling (or other material) announcement is made concurrently.
I speculate that the second announcement (about drilling or JVs or other) is something that has been either expedited or wasn't originally intended to be announced this week, but is being pushed through to offset the price query response and confusion last week. Whether this is true or effective or even plausible will remain to be seen.
Sequence of events:
1. ML posts on Twitter and sparks sensitive/non-sensitive debate last Wednesday night.
2. TH announced on Thursday morning from ASX re: Twitter
3. AVZ responds pretty quickly (Thursday night). Their intention in responding quickly would have been to get them out of TH sooner, otherwise, why not take more time?
4. Everyone expects it to open on Tuesday morning. Didn't happen. ASX has more questions/clarifications.
5. Suspension announced Tuesday morning with target of opening Thursday morning. Didn't happen (i.e. missing the estimated timeframe)
6. Here we are...
Now if AVZ had always intended on making a big/huge announcement this week, the timing of it couldn't have been Tuesday morning otherwise they would have announced before 9:59am TH was given. Which leaves anytime after Tuesday morning up to now for them to have the intention to make an announcement on drilling etc (if it was indeed part of their master plan).
AVZ had the expectation that their suspension would end this morning, which it didn't.
Since the expected timing was missed, this means, either:
1. They are going back and forth with the ASX on the Twittergate (likely given the confusion and accuracy of their first responses) OR
2. They are in the process of preparing another announcement and finalising details which may have always been part of their plan (in which case their timing of Thursday morning was off), Or
3. Combination of both.
If it was all pre-planned last week or earlier then there wouldn't have been a need for AVZ to respond so quickly to the first ASX query (and with confusion) to get out of TH, miss the estimated timeframe for coming out of suspension this morning and then expect something newsworthy to happen between Tuesday and now.
No new information in this post unfortunately, but I think it's plausible that initial price query and suspension has triggered AVZ to push through things to get a separate announcement out to the market quickly (which by the way, is much needed, but understandably held up with any third party delays).
I would imagine any JV/TO deal to take a bit longer than 5 days to muster together, but would be pleasantly surprised if DD, legals, negotiations etc were all completed in short time (wouldn't put it past the Chinese) even if there were only finishing touches required following a site visit.
I am a supporter of AVZ, ML and Li sector and rarely post, but there's been so much going on, it's hard to sit on the sidelines quietly.
Bodhi_Trader.
(20min delay)