From the announcement "TIVAN optimisation identifies OPEX saving...

From the announcement "TIVAN optimisation identifies OPEX saving of up to $50m p.a" on 1 August:

As a result of the outstanding success of this work, TNG and SMS have agreed to undertake further optimisation of the titanium dioxide feedstock characteristics. Related testwork will be carried out in Perth and Vienna and is expected to take approximately three months to complete.

From the BRR on 2 August, about 6 minutes in:

....We are implementing final optimisations and the processing concepts before we will then go into the detailed engineering of the plant and into the structuring of the required project finance. On a sidetrack we are perusing discussions with TNG on IP sharing....and we are now in final discussions on an agreement...

My take on this is that we can expect an announcement on a binding agreement re the IP sometime in Sept/Oct.

IMHO the application to the German export credit agency can only be made after SMS have locked down the detailed engineering and crunched  the numbers. I don't expect any announcement on the finance arrangements, possibly with the exception of NAIF, until after TNG/SMS have submitted the application to the credit agency.

While this seems to be dragging on, again IMHO, the finance consortium is a done deal and SMS finance is the catalyst for the project finance be formalised - which others have mentioned before.