I can tell you right now with 100% certainty they are not drilling anything right now. It's still winter up there, and while the drill machine it self wont have any problem punching through snow, you must understand that to get to the Handcamp site, you must use logging roads which are very tough to drive on and access when they are covered in snow. Besides getting a lot of snow recently, they also could at any time still get a big, unexpected snow storm which could shut down any drilling for a week or more. They would not risk starting drilling right now.
If the weather warms up soon, they could look to start drilling possibly by the middle or end of march.
Also what you said is incorrect as well:
Time is money as soon as they extract the elements the money starts rolling in
Even if they signed a full JV tomorrow for Handcamp, it would take around 3 years before they could mine anything from the area due to how long it takes to get all of the proper licesnes.