RE: What are they going to do first?Second try, hope its clearer.
If the Frac Plant costs as presented include the removal of overburden on the Frac Sand deposit, then they should put the Frac Plantin first, earn needed cash and continue to plan the Nickel project.
It would allow time to increase nickel reserves and resources andinvestigate the viability of the HydroNI Process which should allowthem to bypass smelter fees and concentrate transportation charges.
On the other hand...
If the cost of excavating overburden on the Frac Sand part of theproject is shared with the Nickel costs, they should consider a planwhere only a part of the overburden on the Frac Sand deposit isremoved (say 1 1/2 years) to allow mining the Frac Sand, while removingfurther overburden to allow for the next years Frac Sand production –and so on.
This would also allow for time to increase reserves and resourceswhile investigating theHydroNI Process. Additionally some of theoverburden will have been stripped for future nickel production.