"....120m is absolutely relevant here. If you own a house and...

"....120m is absolutely relevant here. If you own a house and you spend money on renovating, is that a sunk cost or would you expect to at least recoup some of the money on sale"

Exploration is exploration, if you don't "get it" don't invest in it. $120m spent on a resource that is now not faible to extract, is still worthless. There wasn't any competing offers, and now you have a team with a better track record than most, on the registry. However, using your analogy with investing in an exploration company, and comparing it to housing is wonderful and very apt, please see below from The Daily Telegraph.

Property prices in once booming mining towns crash, providing lesson in where not to invest.

IT’S BECOME one of the biggest real estate crashes ever — and at the centre are a string of once booming mining towns where house prices have halved in two years. Hotspotting analyst Terry Ryder said tumbling prices have left investors paying mortgages larger than the value of their properties and few can sell them. “Not long ago, mining towns were a popular place for middle-income Australians to invest,” he said. “I now get emails from those same property investors and they’re freaking out. Their mortgage payments are high, but the mining slowdown has meant they have no tenant to help cover it.” Leading the crash is Queensland coal mining hub Moranbah, where the median price plunged from $740,000 in December 2012 to the current $310,000.

Similarly, WA port town Karratha, which services the nearby iron ore mines, has seen median prices in local suburbs such as Nickol slide from $900,000 in 2012 to $544,500 late last year.

Over the same period, Sydney’s median house price increased nearly 25 per cent. Mr Ryder said mining towns were hit by a double whammy. The end of the mining boom sapped demand for property, while rampant building activity oversupplied local markets with housing. “Developers probably got a little greedy. They saw the chance for huge profits, but didn’t pay attention to how many homes other developers were also building. They just kept building and now there are too many houses.”
Capital gains profits weren’t the only incentive for builders and investors to spend in mining towns. Between 2009 and 2012, mining town rents were the most expensive in the country, beating out prices in exclusive Sydney suburbs such as Vaucluse and Mosman.

Among the investors who aimed to capitalise on the opportunity to make rental profits was Sydney resident Simon Parker, who purchased a Moranbah unit in 2012. Mr Parker said he had observed how a low supply of properties, coupled with high demand for homes, had caused rents and prices to surge in the years preceding his purchase. But that environment quickly changed. “The mining companies used to pay rent for their workers and the thinking was ‘they have deep pockets, they’ll pay anything’. Of course, they didn’t,” he said. Staggering rents were part of the reason mining companies like BHP Billiton began operating mining camps — self-contained housing nearby mines — that now circumvent the local housing markets of surrounding towns. The camps have become popular because mining workers now prefer to fly-in and fly-out of the areas they mine. Mr Parker said he had discovered that “mining towns are not popular places to live and most workers prefer staying in capital cities and flying back for work.” This has kept his property vacant for long periods.

BIGGEST MEDIAN PRICE FALLS IN MINING TOWN SUBURBS
Dysart, Qld: $569,000 (2012) — $120,000 (2014)
Moranbah, Qld: $740,000 (2012) — $310,000 (2014)
Nickol, WA: $900,000 (2012) — $544,500 (2014)
Port Hedland, WA: $1.59 million (2012) — $970,000 (2014)
Blackwater, Qld: $452,500 (2012) — $280,000 (2014)