Each person has to ask themselves whether today's price...

Each person has to ask themselves whether today's price represents value or not. Forget the past. It was never worth 7c imo, that was based on hype which reality never matched.

The market has changed for AVL and just about every other explorer. AVL is now in a consolidation phase where most of the progress over the next year will be small incremental steps leading up to a bfs. Nothing much to excite the market, so no reason for the sp to move too much either way.

A hard slog ahead behind the scenes now, inching forward on many important fronts until the company announces the bfs is complete.

Back to accumulation mode on sp dips for those who believe the project will eventually be mined. Not a day traders paradise anymore.

The $10m in the bank probably won't be enough to see the company through to the completion of the bfs in my opinion. There will be many consultants and external experts employed from here onwards, all of which will come at great expense. 

If steady progress is made in the coming months, maybe AVL will try to entice an off-take partner to take a stake in the project. Many end users try to lock in future supply through investing in projects once there is a high level of confidence the project will be mined. At this stage it is probably a bit early and AVL are well funded for a few months, but further down the track extra funding will be required imo and securing an off take partner as an investor is the way to go.

I wonder if that was the role of MM, introduce the company to potential partners for when the time is right. 

Progress has been much slower than expected, but maybe that comes from not fully understanding just how complex it can be to take a large scale project through to production. And probably moreso with a metal that has very few producing mines worldwide. It is of course different if the company is very large and can afford to make mistakes, eg: BHP with the 2 hot briquet plants that were failures at around $2.5b each, or the Ravensthorpe nickel plant etc. Or the laterite nickel plant failures of the mid 2000s.

Even Twiggy's baby, Anaconda was a wipeout for most investors, then you can throw in GBG and LYC as examples also. And closer to home, Windamurra's chequered history dating back to the late 90s.

It is important for AVL to get it right first time, but management must also be mindful of meeting timelines. The market is a tough master.