I broadly agree with the GG8 comments @Stevie_B - and I hold GG8 (here and IRL), however I don't follow AUC closely because I used to live in Katanning back when I was a young nipper, and more recently returned for a holiday there with my WA family (last year) and the town is doing OK, very multicultural now, a lot more than a few decades back when I was last there, and they don't seem to want this gold mine there, but obviously that is not a universal opinion. I had heard that there was a lot of opposition from the local farmers, but that could have been a ploy to drive the offer price up higher for AUC to secure their land from them.

The impression that I got last year was that the local opposition to the gold project there was likely to either slow down the project significantly or wreck it completely.

This Resources Rising Stars article is saying that a $35m deal has now been reached for the 860 hectares of land that AUC needed to secure to progress their project further, and that's a good thing for AUC and also good for the farmers by the sound of it. Katanning is in the wheat belt so it's mostly wheat and sheep country, with some cattle. If the farmers are happy with the price, good on 'em.

So AUC might need to go back on one of my watchlists now coz their KGP is now back "on" it seems. Thanks for the heads up @Stevie_B.

Thanks for the insights @Bear77

The push back by the good folk of Katanning wrt AUC is not unlike the situation that RRL finds itself in relation to The McPhillamys Gold Project. It is not likely to go ahead because of environmental concerns plus it did not have the broad support of the Blayney community despite all the PR spending over recent years.

I have taken a small position in both AUC and GG8 in SM, not IRL, to keep it on my active watch. What could possibly go wrong!!

Yeah, plenty can go wrong @Stevie_B - but it's only play money here, right? I think that if RRL win their high court appeal to Plibersek's decision last year (or was it 2023?) and get that decision overturned, OR can come up with an alternative site for their TSF, then McPhillamys might go ahead at current gold prices, despite the good people of nearby Blayney not being 100% behind the project. But I'm not holding RRL for that or any other reason. Plenty of great management teams in the Aussie gold sector and I don't think the current team at Regis qualify as one of the better ones. They were pretty good back in the early Duketon days, but all of those guys and gals have moved on now, and a lot of them turned up at either EMR or CMM.

The decision that Plibersek made concerning McPhillamys was based on indigineous heritage and cultural concerns which included their cultural connection to the river near there that Regis would have been building their McPhillamys TSF (tailings storage facility) on top of the headlands of - or in the catchment area for - the start of that river - which is barely a creek down at Blayney but gets larger further downstream to the west (further away from McPhillamys). So it wasn't a decision made strictly on environmental grounds actually, or technically, even though she was the minister for Environment and Water at the time - word is Albo doesn't like her much and that's why he shifted her into another position where she couldn't do so much damage. But if McPhillamys ever does get built, it's likely 4 to 5 years before they'd be pouring any gold, at an absolute minimum. So at this stage it's likely not been factored into anyone's valuations of Regis.

If the farmers have sold the land to AUC, that doesn't mean that every hurdle has been cleared obviously (for AUC), but it's the main one that they faced to be sure.