I don't find it odd. I know (German) goverment bureaugracy and know it is slow and tideous. No one said that it should definitely be done by now. The timeframe was from the beginning on just an estimate. As long as we don't know why we didn't get the EXIM approval, we shouldn't blame NioCorp or anyone else.
I recommend reaching out to Jim. I did so and got very detailed answers to my questions even though I had to send him two e-mails at first since the first one slipped throught. (It would strike me odd if Jim would always reply to me immediately because this would indicate that he had nothing else to do.)