Thus the stakes raised through the arbitration? At least we still hold the licences for the JV, and if Rio has overplayed their hand - no IA treatment, bad faith in not pursuing exploration and sharing data … imagine if rescission of the Earn In was the requested remedy - we’ll refund the costs expended on our behalf, we’ll recapture 00% of the JV, negotiate a 34% interest with Mongolia directly, maybe we’ll then auction our entire OT property to another major. It will never happen of course.

Two catalysts (post-TRQ resolution) - potential new deposit discoveries, extensions of HNE are one, the other is that if there were some significant blocks of ETG shares taken down at ETG’s birth by parties later friendly to Rio Tinto’s entry and supportive of the various accommodative agreements made along the way all the way through to the 2022 detente and extinguishment of debt, well, everybody is now 21 years older and likely more impatient for a resolution that was first expected then deferred in 2009 when the size and value of HNE and the valuation of Heruga was in doubt.

We can guess that among the “agenda items” when the undercut commencement negotiations were being concluded were securing the JV licences into OTLLC, securing 34% of the JV into Mongolia’s hands, and coupling that with the “no new debt to impair Mongolia’s dividends from their interests” agreed to by Rio …. what solution to the long impasse with ETG was left ? I conclude only Rio financing acquisition of ETG for OTLLC at no charge - although they may grind on tax treatment or structure to get the benefit of their investment netted out against income taxes with Mongolia. I know others talk about Rio facilitating a third party entry like BHP through ETG perhaps to advance development of Heruga and Lift 2, but I don’t see Rio or Mongolia wanting to share what will become a behemoth cash machine if what is expected in copper markets coincides with full underground production at Hugo North/HNE. And if the Saudi/China push against the dollar bumps gold up, we’ll, like Nolan said, there is a lot more gold at OT than most people realize.

I had hoped that rising copper and gold prices might be a push as well, maybe the interim weakness in copper and the stall of gold towards $2000 has me a little disappointed, although it looks like miracle of miracles a soft global landing might still be a possibility without an intervening hard recession.

I guess the positive outlook is to judge the degree to which Rio’s natural tendencies are being steered or modified by circumstances beyond their control.

In the meantime we shed valuation discount to cashflows just by waiting around - and the effective rate of return at which that is occurring is highly favourable. I’m sure many of us grizzled holders felt a certain relief watching the share price settle into a revised trading range above $1.20, and that range should naturally creep up so long as we wait - and might get some more substantial catalysts in the meantime as well … positive drill results, copper prices?

Back to Picky’s point, yeah seasonality is a well-known junior mining phenomena for traders, but the years the trend is bucked by individual stocks can leave traders out of their positions if they try and time the sell in May … I often have lightened the penny dreadfuls in April, May, but not ETG, it has been constant accumulation when prices are weak for decades(!) for me. Result as yet not determined!

It sure will be a singular speculative play for me. No other so prolonged or so deep into my pocket. FMCDH!!!

cg