BUYBACKS ROSS - with every last cent, close the VIP door for good, page-783

Note the gap in dividends from 2007 to 2008.



And note this quote:

Dividends were paused when it was time for big capital re-investment - construction of plant 2. They were resumed some time later (close to a year after completion).

Right now we're at the big capital re-investment stage - re-commissioning the 2nd plant to get us back to strong revenue, scale and margins, de-watering pits, re-furbishing/re-hiring, and beginning exploration on new large SPLs.

So it's not very reasonable to expect dividends while commissioning is ongoing, as per the dividend history.



Water bottles are the least of our concern. They're <$0.20 each. Royalties are the bigger issue, which would come to high tens of millions of dollars per year, and grow over time with inflation (which is now higher than historically). The most expensive thing with the local events could be the Aussie staff. The flowers, food and water bottles are cheap enough.

Part of the agreement of re-opening is that we promote the benefits of the company to the public, so the government can say "we've allowed them to re-open because they're such a great company, and the public agrees" - less lost face then "we said they made people sick, but we will lose in court, so we are allowing them to re-open". So donations to monks, schools, nearby villages are all toward that goal - public perception / PR. It's meeting the government's new license requirements. They probably log each activity, create a report about it and forward it onto the government (and the lawyers).

Even the video of Mr Chatree, geologist, was PR in favour of that goal. Note the regular mentions of "benefits to the community, higher incomes, education opportunities, family returning to the villages".