A full TO is possible, but one hasn't come to date and I doubt it will come in the next 6 months either. In the past I have said you can do a JORC here on the back of an envelope given it is a homogeneous deposit - refer IMO IMO
At the end of the day it is about a Net Present Value that decides the TO price, and how vertically integrated the buyer is (i.e do they produce lithium carbonate) and a key to any interest does relate to the size of the demand/supply shortfall (i.e. having a large resource extracts maximum value when the mining configuration is commuserate with a development scale that maximises the synergies of that size of resource - that is starting at 2mtpa ore feed IMO is ok but (a TO premium and) economies of scale extracted if can ramp up quickly to say 5 mtpa ore feed and a plan for the tin/tantulum is hatched (in the same process flow sheet). IMO SH value is maximised by taking this to mining, but if a TO happens before that so be it.
The way I would answer the question is that PLS, BGS, MIN, GXY have gone (are likely to go) to mining without a TO to date. So anything is possible but you need to continue to develop the deposit to extract value, not waiting for a TO to happen (and doing nothing else).
