BHP or not to BHP, page-5

Interesting development during the week in the interplay between BHP and Andrew Forrest's Wyloo, and their interaction with Mincor (BHP as a customer and Wyloo as a potential acquirer).

Mincor came out and said that their supply of nickel ore to BHP's Kambalda concentrator has run into a problem. Apparently their deal with BHP is that they supply a product sufficiently low in arsenic and that a portion of what they have been supplying to BHP has been "off-specification". Up till now BHP has been accepting both Mincor's off-specification product as well as the stuff that is on-specification but BHP has informed Mincor that it will not or at least may not do so in future. This would force Mincor to stockpile the ore with higher levels of arsenic until they found or built a facility to handle it. In the immediate term that means the costs of producing each tonne of on-specification product would go up to cover the cost of extracting the non-revenue-earning off-specification ore. This revelation suggests that AF's offer of $1.40 per MCR share could be overly generous. A spanner in the works for Mr Forrest it seems, as well as a kick in the guts for Mincor.

https://www.share cafe.com.au/2023/03/30/bhp-no-help-to-mincor-with-nickel-offtake-rebuff/ (remove the two spaces)

So how does that impact Widgie? I had a quick look and it seems that Armstrong has some reserves with lower levels of arsenic and some with higher levels but whether or not Armstrong ore would rate as off-specification or on-specification I don't know. This would affect whether BHP actually wants the material from Armstrong. Maybe this is what has caused Steve Norregaard to seemingly call "squirrel!" in redirecting the focus away from Armstrong and onto what seems to me to be a low grade marginal DSO lithium possibility at Faraday (?). Perhaps if BHP starts rejecting some of the Mincor ore BHP will become more welcoming of Armstrong's ore. OR perhaps this change threatens the viability of Mincor or BHP's Kambalda's concentrator or both. My understanding is that the acceptance of third party nickel ore by BHP Kamalda was the premise for Widgie's being so this development could be a biggy for Widgie imo. Thoughts, anyone?