price of phosphate, page-12

Phil 1, I note that I posted my last post late on a Friday evening, with all of the attendant problems that can bring. Hence I was not surprised when told to re-read previous posts. However I cannot actually verify your position that export rock is 30%. That is not to say that some export rock is not at 30% - but how does it relate to the prices you happily quote – because rest assured, the difference between 34% P2O5 and 30% P2O5 will not just be pro-rated as per 30/34 multiplied by the price. So would appreciate your reference for this, as I expect the price quoted is actually for the highest grade phosphate rock.
I then also noted that Legend have kindly posted a scoping study on their proposed resource development, where they are planning to beneficiate to 32% to 34% - why do that if 30% is the new internationally accepted grade?
And I then further note their scoping study indicating, in 2007$, a beneficiation plant cost of $228M – before contingencies. Admittedly for a much larger plant (10M tpa to 5M tpa of upgrade rock – 17% to 34%). Their scoping study correctly notes that they do not include mining costs in their study – because that will be an operating cost. At some stage MAK should acknowledge what it intends to own, and not to own, because if it does not intend to own anything, then I am not even sure why its capex is even as high as $50M. And it may be lucky to have some DSO – but I am sure the whole ore body will not be, and if the DSO is poddy they are likely to have to accept lesser grade with the higher grade for mine planning purposes anyway – and what of Fe, Mg and Al content?
The point is that it is an artificial exercise to say our capex costs are low just because they shift everything to opex - they still have to find someone to provide the capital, and often that capital is more expensive than the capex that may be available (in a different market) through normal channels.
But I will await with interest the JORC statement…