Posted on SH, post here for info.

In the current PEA, the Sigma Mill is front and centre. Management intends to use the Sigma Mill to process the bulk samples, instead of paying someone else to process them at $46/tonnes. Relevant information can be found in the 13 January NR. More details can be found in the Technical Report.

The cost of refurbishment is not that much (with 30% contigency included) is about $7.5M (which is included in the Pre-production Cap cost estimate of $62M) plus $1.9M included in the sustaining capital. Depending on how management plan to do thing in the revised PEA (slated for ~ September 2016), but one option is to get the mill ready as soon as they have the ores (from bulk sampling or otherwise) available to have some "commissioning" test runs with the mill, and get some Au out of the samples. $7.5M is not a great amount. They have enough cash in the kitty to even start doing something now without raising any extra money. If they need to raise some cash to feel more confortable then they can issue say 20M shares @ 0.75/s for some $15M, or wait for the SP to get to $1.00 (e.g. after the release of the new PEA) to get $20M for 20M shares.

If the responses to the new PEA is overwhelming then management may want to raise the entire amount required for pre-production, through equity ($62M + a bit more = $100M, too much?, but at $1.00/s it would result in 600M shares rather than 500M shares, not much a dilution while the company is raking in $100M). Screams?

If they feel confident about what they are doing based on the robustness of the new PEA then they may even want to skip the BFS (more screams?, but a BFS production would cost quite a bit of money). The BFS (bankable...), as implies by its definition, is a requirement document if management wants to go to the banks, hats in hands, asking them for a hefty loan, e.g. a 5-year term @ 8% interest (not a good thing to have a high-interest large debt hanging around the neck). In my opinion, a robust NI-compliant Technical Report produced by a reputable consulting firm would be good enough to proceed down the production path.

Have a good read of the NR. Quite enlightening, I found.
Cheers,
GH