From a friend of mine
The usual path to production is drill at the proper spacings for an mre, then a pea, then a pfs, then a production decision. While that is on going some permitting studies can be done simultaneously but some need to wait until scale is determined. They can also send off a small 5 tonne sample to a met lab and a 10k or 20k tonne bulk sample to a custom mill somewhere. Those bulk samples can be done fairly quickly. One should not assume mre grade will match bulk sample grades though. Especially with veiny coarse systems. The larger the sample the better but they always high grade those samples. Take WM for example, they sent a bulk sample out to the Camflo mill several years ago which came back at 18 gm but when the MRE came out it was closer to 2.5 gm for underground and 1.5 gm for the pitable ore at surface. Drill grades and mre grade can be completely different because the mre includes much more dilution required to extract blocks of ore, not to mention companies want to show high grades to pump the stock at the bulk sample stage.
If NFG does go with a a mill, either owned, or custom, located 270km away then run away. If they have a decent deposit they will build their own on site. Full scale mining with their own mill will take a minimum of 4 years from today. Bulk sampling can be done within 6 months.