Hi jeremyjone ,the title of your thread re "the facts" seems a...

Hi jeremyjone ,the title of your thread re  "the facts" seems a little misleading given reliance on " I have been told" by "someone" doesn't seem to be something I would refer to as factual. What is factual is the images below the first and last of which are taken directly from Rio Tinto web site as is the following

Transition project

Hail Creek Mine is seeking to amend its Environmental Authority to support the long term future of the operation. Due to the nature of the coal seam, there is a need to transition the operation to further areas within our mining lease. The Hail Creek Transition Project is seeking approval for options to continue open cut mining to the north of the existing mine, a transition of open cut mining to the eastern side of Hail Creek and the potential for underground mining, working east from the existing mine pit.

As part of their approval process they have lodged a 60 page Environmental Authority Amendment S226 Considerations Report from which the top and bottom image were taken. The middle image shows the location of EPC1645 that was transferred to RIO as part of AQC/RIO Hillalong agreement.
The top image shows RIO tenure extending  North/NorthWest past the boundary of the Hail Creek MDL and clearly shows from comparison with AQC middle diagram, that they have picked up a large contiguous holding that extends the footprint of the mine and AQC tenement is a large part of their plans.
The bottom diagram shows the highlighted areas that they propose to extend mining within the boundary of their mining licence and again you can see that AQC tenement overlaps the corner of this ground.

Unless you are on the board of RIO , I don't think anyone can suggest what they will or will not do in respect of AQC/RIO JV, however given they clearly have regional plans for Hail Creek that includes tenement that we transferred to them, and which they will have to return if they don't exercise option, I think that it is a good bet that they will want to keep this ground and therefore proceed with JV.

The actual JV tenement ie EPC1824 of which they have drilled 2 holes on forms part of RIO's Elphinstone Project and has been part of a wider regional drilling plan. Hopefully we will here more on this soon.