I think 480 or so thousand needs to be on hand to get started, but 2 million needs to be available at the start to keep the whole progarm on track, if early results warrant going ahead.

In other words, you don't want to sink two good holes, and then have to send the drill away while you spend time trying to find the balance of funds needed to complete the first phase.

On the other side of the coin, if two holes do not return encouraging results, you've spent 1/5th of your budget for the program, and you can cut your losses and release the contractor.

That's the way I see.

VP