Ann: Acquisition of Baralaba Minority Interests, page-7

Agreed about NPVs, particularly those made before the project has even turned the first sod. You might as well use a dartboard to pick a project NPV, but as long as the uncertainties are taken into account they can be useful. I personally think they should all be done by Monte Carlo, and if the tail-end of the Monte Carlo distribution doesn't stray into negative territory you are probably doing it wrong!

But COK do have one advantage which is that they are already mining at Baralaba so their estimate of mining costs at sub-$100/t should be at least in the ballpark. Too often the NPVs are predicated on mining costs that turn out to be way too optimistic, and the nature of NPVs is such that even a modest under-estimate in true mining costs can devastate an NPV, particularly for bulk, low margin commodities.