100 DAY COUNTDOWN - IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN, page-152

AF already holding such a decent chunk of Noront puts BHP at a disadvantage from the start, imo, notwithstanding the Noront Board's support.

There's no doubt that Noront is a big boy's vLT game by virtue of it's remoteness and the dollars and time required to unlock its true potential.

Is it all theatre by AF who has "done a BMM" on Noront with the acquisition of his initial stake and CN?
Was it just masterful timing by AF's investment team to front-run (by 6 months) an anticipated tilt in Noront by BHP or anyone else, with the ultimate goal of greenmailing for a textbook flip?
Or is AF and his team serious about it and looking well over the horizon here?

I don't buy the ST mindset theory. That's very much NOT his style, unless absolutely forced to yield (nod to Gina). For me, his Noront play is very much LT. Forever LT, like FMG? Dunno. Forever is a long time.

The Noront story would fit pretty neatly, imo, into FMG's broadening aspirations, though.

I see AF's approach here in using Wyloo as the v.nimble private vehicle as a LT strategic play that may eventually (down the track) involve FMG making a play to fold Noront into the FMG tent. Big, big picture stuff.

I think a better line of questioning would be along the lines of why BHP has even bothered. Surely they know he's a Pit Bull and not ever likely to just roll over. It's not like his effective holding level in Noront was a secret.

BHP's actions have forced AF to tip his hand wrt his strategic thinking on Ni in general, imo. It's likely to have implications in WA in due course.

He's already got strategic stakes in POS and MCR and has made a v.late start in WSA.
I'm watching IGO to see whether he eventually turns up there to give Creasy a run for his money.

Here's a highly theoretical mind-bending exercise:
- Think about a world in which IGO, WSA, PAN, MCR, and dear old POS are all inside the same tent.
- Now think about what that might do for (the currently incarnated) IGO's aspirations to add a Ni sulphate plant at Kwinana.
- Now think about the prospect of all* those producers eventually by-passing smelting to send their Ni conc. direct to a Ni sulphate plant that isn't BHP.
- Now think about whether this is playing on BHP's mind wrt WA Ni. It should be.
- Now take a Bex and have a lie-down for that giant headache.


(*MCR, with it's lack of independent concentating capacity, would be a loose-end that would need resolving -- hence the use of "eventually".)