>>They know it will take big money to develop the project on a fast track.<<

Yes, big money could get things moving rather quickly. But how much faster? Right now the bottleneck is the mill. They have plenty of ore to process, some of it pretty high grade (maybe 3-4 oz/t). Even if the mill gets up to 500 tpd, they have 4-5 years of ore. They built the mill and got it to production (and I suspect very near to where they want it to be) in a year. One worker said it should be up to 200 tpd by next May. They should be able to expand the mill pretty quickly- the building is half empty and another similar setup could be put in easily, doubling the size. And the extra capacity shouldn't cost that much, especially if they already have some of the components. That would bring them up to around the 500 tpd I think I remember being mentioned in some of the PRs. But even at 125 tpd (the latest PR figure) and 2 oz/t (minimum for the higher grade ore they will be using), they will be generating $350k/day, or $10M/month! That's more in one month than the $6.5 million they say they will need in the next year to get to the point where they are mining ore, which they say they will do in 14-18 months. That rate of production should also fund any mill expansion. How much faster would progress go with outside money? Maybe they could have some more people working on reopening the mines, but there are only so many people you can put on the job at once- at least in one mine. So maybe they could start working on reopening multiple mines? Or connecting other mines up to the Sinker?- but that requires rehabbing the Sinker first.

Other possible uses for the money would include geological surveys and drilling. But I suspect at least some of the drilling may be done from within the mines, so that would have to wait for rehab. Other drilling will probably be done elsewhere, but how much money could that cost? Even an extensive drilling program conducted over a year might take only a few months revenue- especially as they ramp up production.

So unless I have missed something or my numbers are way off, I really don't see why they would need outside money right now. They might have been able to use it to speed up things a year ago, or maybe 6 months ago, but not now. The fact that they are beginning serious work on the Sinker tells me that they have the cash to do it- otherwise if they are borrowing or diluting to fund it, why not start it much earlier?

I don't consider this a "problem", though, that they might have a hard time spending money as fast as they bring it in.