Ann: Option Agreement for Joint Venture Signed, page-8

Be wary of this; while on the surface it looks great that a subsidiary of RIO is potentially going in on a JV, the reality, in my opinion, will be the VAL board will do SFA and let the KEX crew do all the heavy lifting. These companies operate at a glacial pace, so announcements will be few and far between, leading to an eroding SP.

My opinion is based on observing a similar situation with another penny dreadful: AZS. They too have a subsidiary of RIO exploring one of their tenements for a potential JV and boy do they move slowly. The AZS SP has tanked and continues to fall (they did a 10:1 consolidation last year, so their SP isn't as low as VAL's just yet).

In my opinion, these RIO subsidiaries are opportunists; they know these spec companies are hard up for resources so they play the long game with them. If they do ever find anything, they eventually pick them up for a song, leaving most of the long suffering SH's with little return.