exxaro and eqx tie up talks, page-32

I'd say FMG isn't directly comparable to a West African IO hopeful. It's starting to cost money to breathe in Australia, CAPEX's are exploding, OPEX's raising, all due to new taxes, IR laws, wage spirals due to shortages etc. I suppose we are all just guessing possible CAPEX and OPEX figures though, the proof will be in the pudding. As a point, I'm lead to believe EQX is not allowed to release all of those CAPEX/OPEX figures until they have released a JORC compliant resource. Someone correct me if I've been led down the wrong path, but it was a very reliable source.

As for the news flow, I personally don't think it's been too bad. In each presentation they alter the meterage drilled to date, so you should be able to get a read of how long it's taken them to drill that meterage, and compare what's been drilled to the drill program meterage total before completion.

I was disappointed that the JORC was pushed back to the second half of this calendar year, but it's allowed me to accumulate so I'm not overly phased. An update on Badondo has been slow coming which has disappointed a little too, but after having held other mining hopefuls in the area and following many others, time delays in drilling those remote outcrops seem to be somewhat expected.

As for the port and rail and referring to it all being very late, which dates did the company stipulate they would have what you were expecting to be announced all done by? My thoughts are that EQX will be in new discussions with Exxaro as we speak regarding infrastructure spending. EQX has basically said as much in it's updates and media reports by analysts covering EQX are saying that also. EQX, Exxaro, and the Congolese will all need to be sitting at the same table and thrashing the infrastructure question out, and when Exxaro has only just come to the table it's probably going to take a little time before everything is signed off and agreed upon. The Congolese will likely want to wait until EQX has a JORC resource as well before making all infrastructuer agreements official.

This is all just IMO of course.