This is not a rhetorical question! If you have actually thought this through, I am keen to hear your views.
To me it looks like the issues are:
- If they miss whatever construction milestones, they can't get that $85 million of Sprott finance released.
- If they don't have cash flow by June 2023, then they will definitely need a capital raise to avoid default.
So Richards must have thought they were not going to positive cash flow by June 2023 - 19 months away.
So he definitely needs more money.
He has said they are not going back to market for another raise. (Probably would have been better to do a surprise raise, in hindsight!)
So he has to go back to Sprott.
But why did he need to stop work on the site? This is not explained.
Is it to be in a better bargaining position with Sprott?
Were they just overwhelmed and couldn't figure
It's tempting to think there is some other big problem not disclosed, but I doubt it. Problems that stop work are about as big as they get, and the update has the flavour of a full exposure of skeletons from the closet.
My best guess is that Richard's new strategy is to tread water and go slow for six months while doing exploration. Hope to find something, then do a raise off the back of that. Probably not a bad strategy. So don't expect any quick resolution with Sprott.
So the question is how did they get into this situation in the first place? Looks like too ambitious on the project timeline - total own goal. If they had an extra year, there would be no problem.
(20min delay)