RE:??????? I don't have a definitive, and even if I did, would you believe it?
Here is one possibility.
The value proposition in Laurion is the data room. It is the source of the knowledge of 10M+ ounces. Without an MRE and an explanation of the math, it is impossible to qualify from the outside. It is the secret sauce. It is based on assay results, channel samplings and Geospatial analysis, plus whatever AI they are running it through.
Last year's results were passed off as better than or at least as good as expected considering they were testing the perimeter. I think there was interest last year but a deal broke down. It may not be abandoned.
I think Laurion may now be in a position of showing it's hand. A 5000 meter drilling plan always struck me as really small, but in the context of validating the dataroom it makes sense.
A successful drill that aligns with the predictions from the Laurion data room gives credibility to their analysis and comfort to the buyer.
I think that may be why they are doing so much sampling. Trying to get the best data before drilling. Fieldwork and machine learning are fairly priced and cheap compared to drilling.
A private equity firm is more likely to purchase the Ishkoday that a large producer. I think there is at least one more flip before the Ishkoday becomes the a mine. That said, a private equity firm is buying the data, and in order to pay 10-20x current, I am sure they will want validation. They would then do a couple of years of large drilling campaigns and turn it over to a major.
I know that Laurion has money and can survive another year or two, but should the validation not go well, the hit will be to the value of their modelling, and that may take some time to recover from. A successful campaign could bring other suitors and that is a risk the buyer is making.
Of course all of this could be completely wrong and for all you know ChatGPT wrote it, but I for one am waiting for an announcement of the start of the drilling campaign.