Sells old asset for US$8.5m cash and shares, page-33

Yes, thought I had answered it. (All IMO). Tenure has no chance under the status quo - nothing will change that opinion without dump trucks full of prior warning as there is currently no effective system in place to grant tenure. The old Arroyo style MPSA tenure with the conditions described in the Mabilo DFS? Well, you didn't get one under Aquino, zero chance that will happen under Duterte. This admin is not going to bypass due process for mining approvals that revert to historically favourable conditions. So if the admin moves to fix tenure and expand the industry, it will be a slow and noisy grinding of wheels of confusion. But not going to happen anyway, IMO.

I thought the ECC was a reasonable chance under Paje. Much, much lesser so under Lopez. I'll believe the world to be flat if Lopez signs an ECC for Mabilo. And if she does, which she won't, it does nothing to address the systemic issues that need to be addressed to grant tenements, as mentioned above.

Therefore, as everything sits at the moment, an ECC grant does not improve the prospects for tenure (IMO). Note that the ECC grant to Tampakan was token, as nothing was done to overcome the structural problems to allow that project to proceed.

But from my point of view, I'm only interested in the tenure mess being resolved. Well, I was, but no point worrying about it now. At least Duterte has provided certainty (for some).