Rarely read anything other than particular stock threads, but this one caught my eye when logging in.
My 2 cents worth, based on varifiable facts & also direct conversation with one of Hancock Mining's partners:
A certain South Korean company that purchased 15% of the Roy Hill project are tearing their hair out over the "unauthodox" manner of business they have found themselves embroiled in. This company is a very large engineering/project management company & they have had a large staff hanging around in Perth since last year waiting on the announcement of the prime contractor for the Roy Hill Project. After many "deadlines" passing without a decision, they have recently sent many of the Perth contingency back to South Korea & it appears likely that the whole design & construct phase of the project may have to be run from Seoul instead of Perth if they are to be able to satisfy Hancocks demands. This will mean a large loss to the WA & Australian economy in "trickle down" expenditure.
Hancock is fond of blaming everything on Australia, but clearly consideration must be give to their own management.
Now, on the subject of Hancock itself: As they are so fond of relating in their self promoting, Hancock has held many of these iron ore tenamets for around half a century. Yet it is only now that they have managed to do anything with them. Granted RIO has developed one of their leases, but it was entirely RIO on a farm out basis. The reality is that Hancock itself does not have a track record of anything other than being mineral squatters.
IMHO muzzarati, what is a "disgrace" is that they have been allowed to tie up resources, that belong to Australia, for so many years without acting to develop them & contribute to the good of Australia. There are certainly questions that could be asked of WA State governments of both persuations over those years as to why this has been allowed to happen.
The South Korean's experience with Hancock Mining would surely be ringing alarm bells for other would be partners/jv's/finaciers & with the Chinese clearly exerting their demand monopoly (after years of stockpiling) it is a real possibility that Hancock Mining may well have once again missed the resource boom boat.
But then I guess it will all be the fault of the Joe Public !!
