I start by bringing to your attention that "The Northern...

I start by bringing to your attention that "The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) has approved its largest investment to date with a loan of up to $610 million for a world first renewable energy project in north Queensland 270km north west of Townsville".Jul 12, 2019 The point is that it's unlikely NAIF will offer the full AUD1.6b funding required by SCONI.

Based on my subjective analysis (purely my opinion) speculative funding may be as follows: (this is one speculative suggestion open for discussion)
The indicative funding sought is for US970m processing plant + circa US200m ancillary costs =US1.17b (AUD1.672b).

Let's assume and adopt AUZ also receives AUD600,000,000 from NAIF
+ Qld gov't financial support of AUD100,000,000
Consortium of lenders AUD972,000000
Total: AUD1,672,000,000

The consortium of financiers will want to take equitable interest/security against Sconi and all of AUZ's assets and future cash-flows (as will NAIF and probably the Qld gov't too). All lenders will want to cary out acceptable industry studies - and carefuly analyse the current and future market/prospects of the nickel-cobalt operated EV batteries and, equally importantly the skill sets and experiences of AUZ board and senior managers.

The Offtake partner(s) will need to be of quality and financial substance in which the lenders can take great comfort. Afterall, the Off taker(s) will "guarantee" Sconi's cash flow.
I think the above scenario is very challenging in the least.

Assuming as an alternative the Offtake partner(s) take substantial financial investments/interest(s) in Sconi - then the heavy realiance on Consortium of lenders will decrease and this should make securing full funding easier/more feasible.

Regardless of what I have mentioned above, the amount of work and risk taking by any lender is big and challenging. AUZ really need proficient people who are highly specialised in large project funding to put this to "bed".

The question is what is AUZ's board doing about this? If they have decided to rely on their own skills I'd like to know what their strategy is? Otherwise, get real and employ specialist people for a special purpose task of project funding of SCONI Mine. The longer the board takes to address this issue the longer it will take to find Off takers and suitable funders.