It seems to me that releasing info from the FS to select investors or institutions before the public release date would constitute a crime under U.S. securities laws, so I think it's highly unlikely to happen. This is not Mark or Jim's first rodeo by any means--and don't forget that Mark is a lawyer.
People have been patiently watching this project for 6+ years. I would imagine that any institutional investor that follows the industrial metals market would be aware of it, if not actually following it, if only for the novelty of billions in potential mineral wealth hiding under Nebraska cornfields. The kind of money that matters (sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurance companies, etc.) is not going to be competing with day traders over a few pennies per share. They will have investment targets that may take months or years to reach, once they decide that the company is a solid long-term holding. I don't imagine that happening until after somebody makes a large investment in building the mine, as was the case with Pretium in September of 2015 when it received a $540 million construction financing commitment from Orion and Blackstone, some 15 months after their updated FS. That project has had a very aggressive construction timeline (although in far less hospitable surroundings than SE Nebraska) and is just now in the commissioning stage. I'll repeat that: updated FS in June 2014, first production May or June, 2017 (if all goes well.)
The bottom line? Don't try to predict the short term future based on conjecture about what unknown others might do. If you think NB is a solid investment, buy some if you can. I've bet a few hundred thousand dollars that whoever owns this project will eventually build it, produce a product at a profit and provide a better than S&P 500 index-fund-level return to the investors. I even think there is a modest chance that it will make some of the people on this board into multi-millionaires. If you buy in at anything less than a buck or two, I am pretty sure you will be very happy in 3-5 years.
p.s. In the words of Robert Friedland, Ivanhoe chairman and an insanely successful mining entrepreneur, "The best projects always get built." There are many of us who have voted with our wallets that this project is one of them.
