hypothetical question, page-35

Hi Bigstar, logic would suggest that the Chinese having mobilized the large SOE (ooops there is competition) with massive firepower owned and financed by the state (largest soverign fund in the world by orders of magnitude) spending enormous amount of money, efforts and time to tender for the deal (bacially a resumption from the exclusive takeover deal that wasn't allowed to happen after all) would at the very least come up with something better than what Hanlong (a little obscure private company with no mining experience and absolutely ZERO experience in iron ore & steel and suffering the perennial problems of securing funding and approvals causing repeated delays from the very same STATE institutions backing the current bid).

So now (after massive high-grade DSO and itbiraite resource upgrade and competition breathing down China's neck) the Chinese facing competition is going to offer a lower bid than when they told a Sichuan pauper to buy Sundance on behalf of the state (with all that CDB money). OMG...but the sp isn't rosy !

Even if one were to ignore the Tonkolili and Simandou valuations (which must be flashing like bright neons at the competition) and just at the Minmetals valuation (why now...LOL! ) of a obscure domestic IO processing company at $1.7B and you know the Chinese are trying to say something.

Bear in mind, Minmetals has also be sniffign around IOC (valued in whole at $6B @15MTA high-cost magnetite pelleting). Hardly a contender against $21/T world class lowest cost project that can repay capex in 18 months and many decades of very happy returns.

Only one can be right and we are weeks away from the moment of truth.

I could be wrong.