If it was just about an RE and we are worth 10% of that, why did we take SC all the way to FS?

We took it to a FS because that was required by the contract to earn our 25%. We all learned through that experience that it is a very costly and time-consuming enterprise.

Finally with VD we are playing on our own terms and we don't have to carry it through to the FS stage, especially since the costs for extraction are fairly well known. BHP is about 400 yards (meters?) away doing the exact same thing. They need to see the PEA but they might not feed a FS to absorb it into their already running operations.

(The fact that we bought it cheaply is irrelevant. History is littered with projects that were purchased at a low level and then flipped for multiples of profit.)