Play the ball, not the man. If you have a different view, that's...

Play the ball, not the man. If you have a different view, that's fine, just detail it.

As I have said before, Toliara has a good resource and that can be clearly seen by the fact that Base wanted to grab it on the cheap (ridiculously cheap). But there are many forces at play besides building the roads, a new revised port and even the resource itself.

1. Kenmare costs $500m+ and looks in very bad shape due to market pricing and their debt. Many people have fears that this could go under. Now there is a lot of market chatter about Iluka picking up the project for not a lot (the banks could lose hundreds of millions). This wouldn't be a good outcome for any new player, particularly with it held with the biggest player, who could really make it work and continute to dominate the supply market.

2. Chinese construction industry is wobbly. This is affecting TiO2 stockpiles (volumes) and prices. Yesterday's Chinese Sichuan price for TiO2 50% is $95t. Barely break even for most ilmenite players.

3. World pricing of TiO2, Zircon, Rutile are on historical lows and questions are being asked whether this will turn this year.

4. There are many new sand mines coming online in 2015 including projoects like Grand Cote (I meant this in my previous post and not Moma). I can think of four other good size greenfield projects, one in my backyard - SFX. That has a mine resource of (3.2 billion @ 6.8%HM - M.Cap $100m) that will see out my kids. Do I question whether that will get up in the next few years? Yes I do. Hence why I've mentioned about Toliara getting up in the short term.

5. We've seen the big players like Rio/Vale etc head deep into Africa and spend billions on prospective iron ore projects. I would be thinking that most will not see the light of day with the current pricing, even though the resources are good. Sand is no different to any other commodity, it's about supply and demand and the demand currently isn't there and I would be thinking most banks would be hesitant to be backing one (of any real size).

Pep