The revised timeline is a good thing, but to be frank if they had got their act together earlier they could have been slightly earlier in production in any event IMO, but 2021 is far better than 2022/23. In terms of the issues around environmental guidelines, just be mindful there are different layers of environmental guidelines and assessments, depending how your project is viewed. Obviously, if your proposal isn't deemed to disturb the environment too much, which is what happens with a lot of mining developments in regions, the process is a lot quicker than say building LNG facilities near 'towns' or complicated iron ore projects with 500 km long rail links to ports located near residents (and very very large stockpiles of ore are required at the port like you see with iron ore in the Pilbara).
EPA processes are also quite different in the metropolitan region as well, for obvious reasons (much closer to population centres and further more Perth itself gets 50% of its water, for example, from near to Perth ground water supplies.
My take is that AVL's project is not going to have a large environmental impact, when compared to other projects of the scale of production order like AVL, given where it is located and the fact at the end of the day the export product will be some 10,000 tpa to 20,000 tpa of V205 (i.e. minimal truck movements to and from port). At 50 tonnes V205 per truck, looking essentially at around 200 truck movements per year for 10,000 tonnes V205, 400 truck movements for 20,000 tpa.
Obviously, noting the inputs for producing the V205 you'll have a few more truck movements but nothing too significant IMO. Obviously, I am assuming they will not be faced with rare fauna and flora in the mining development because if so that would take longer, but would be interesting what work they have done and what they have identified so far. My take, is by bringing the environmental approvals estimate forward suggests that AVL don't believe the environmental approvals will be too stringent for its proposal - similar to PLS which was able to go from discovery to mining in a very short timeframe btw.
In terms of energy requirements, and infrastructure outside the mining area, if they connect to the gas pipeline 160km away for their gas again that would likely be minimal environmental disturbance IMO as well.
A key thing the EPA will be looking for is there environmetal strategies around mining and exploration, and rehabilitating the land as they undertake the work). How they deal with tailings will be the other issue the EPA will likely look at, but tailings storgae/dams are not unique to AVL btw. How they propose to deal with hydrological regimes of groundwater and surface water so that environmental values are protected will also be a key - https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-07/documents/lecture-5-hydrologic-processes.pdf.
At the end of the day, AVL just need to focus on entering the steel market in the now, and focus only on that. So the comments above are in that regard.
The speed of the environmental process is also in AVL's hands as they need to do the initial studies before the EPA gets involved.
(20min delay)
