Ms Laura Burke:

There is a considerable process to be completed before we reach that point. In the first instance, the research must be completed, at which point an exploration licence would have to be approved. It would only be at the end of an exploration licence process that an application would come to the Environmental Protection Agency. For this reason, I cannot provide a timescale, although I will say a significant period will elapse before we even receive an application for commercial extraction. The reason the EPA is being proactive and doing the work now is to ensure we will have the relevant data available to us in advance of any licence application being submitted.