Banter and general comments, page-20946

"Another height of stupidity, why sell DSO when in 2-3 months can sell as SC5.5?"
Really, your future price crystal ball is that good, or do you have inside knowledge that the DMS capacity will exceed the crushing capacity established by Mineral Resources?

If the DMS processing capacity exceeds the rate ore can be supplied, I'd agree because even if a stockpile of 6.3mm product developed, it could be processed in the near term.

If the crushing capacity exceeds the DMS capacity to use the crushed product (as it obviously does pre-commissioning, will do during DMS ramp-up and may do in a steady state position if DMS processing estimates were optimistic), where is the extra crushed ore going? There would be an ever-increasing pile of circa 1.4% 6.3mm product until Grants is mined out, new DMS capacity is brought online or crushing is slowed down to match DMS capacity. If the DMS is running at capacity and not using this extra ore, there is no option to sell it in 2-3 months as SC5.5 (or SC5.8).

The choice for this extra ore beyond what the DMS can process in the short term is on-site stockpile for perhaps years, or DSO sell it. If you knew with confidence you could sell it as Spod in 2-3 years at $6,000/t or more then there is an argument not to do extra DSO sales now. Core has put out a declining Spod price forecast that has out years well below $5,000/t. Wouldn't it then be better to get a DSO sales now for any extra product beyond what the DMS can process?

If $5,000/t or above is an excellent price, how could it be "another height of stupidity" to put more product through at this price?

Background calc's:
If fines are 10% of material, 16.67kt of ore can generate 15kt of DSO and US$14.3m of revenue. That 16.67kt of unprocessed ore with a 71.7% recovery rate and concentration from 1.4% to 5.8% generates 2.89kt of 5.8% Spod (The equivalent of 2.79kt of SC6). It takes a price of $5,112/t for SC6 before 2.79kt of material can generate US$14.3m. Although lower than Spot, DSO is getting an extremely good price and would also appear to be outside the T&C's of any ceilings that may exist on 40% of existing contracts.