well its official now, page-13

From memory, there is roughly a two year period from ML to production.

I am looking for the compelling event that would lead to a takeover, and am not sure that financing the project is a compelling event for a potential suitor.

Securing finance (partly from us I think) leads to construction, and is the next event on the critical path. Securing finance also somehwat locks in the charges that will be paid to the financial institutions. Potential suitors may have access to lower cost funds, which might trigger them initiating action, but this doesnt seem to be a strongly compelling trigger.

Finance and beginning construction of the project might be a trigger for Rio, if their own plans for a merged Rossing and Husab project were significantly different, and led to a quite different project cost base. If true, that might be significant enough to trigger action soon.

Can anyone think of why comitting to project finance would trigger a potential suitor to act before it was committed?

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The expectation of a further resource upgrade being imminently released would be a definite trigger, now that ML is granted, as higher resource = higher total price paid. This trigger applies equally to any potential suitor.

Obviously the need for assurety of supply is a significant factor for the Chinese in particular, and in Rio's case, they have clearly stated that they are still interested in Uranium as a commodity. However these facts merely indicate why they might bid - not when they might bid.

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There could be a number of other factors that would trigger a bid, but they are not apparent to me - any thoughts?
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