I don't think that Wyloo knew. If they did, tactically they would have been waiting for the share price to drop further before announcing their bid.
Wyloo cannot remove their $1.40 bid until it expires (8 May 2023) except in very limited circumstances - part of the trade-off in doing an on-market bid, you can only have limited conditions on your bid. Wyloo may withdraw its bid if, before the bidder's voting power in MCR exceeds 50%, there is an issue of shares or convertible securities by Mincor, a capital reduction or buy-back by Mincor, a conversion of Mincor shares into a larger or smaller number, or Mincor becoming insolvent.
Why did BHP do this - may be they tried to lock Mincor into a longer term off-take in exchange for accepting out of spec ore. Although, I understand arsenic is a big issue for BHP - there is a ceiling on arsenic emissions from the BHP smelter under their environmental permits. So too much means they may need to process less of BHP's own ore if they take MCR ore. Remember, processing Mincor's ore which has a high Fe:MgO ratio meant BHP could blend with its low Fe:MgO from sources like Mt Keith which would otherwise have been too low for the smelter. That benefit goes if arsenic becomes the bottleneck and not Fe:MgO.
I think most people have got the questions for management:
1) When did they know this was an issue - not one bit of discussion.
2) How much of the orebody or orebodies does it apply - or do they still not know!
3) Can it be resolved by blending - if so, how long before it can be. Is there enough low arsenic ore to blend.
Root cause of this likely limited met testing at Cassini. This is from the MCR's DFS "Metallurgical evaluation undertaken by ALS of five ore samples were representative of the range of ore types scheduled in the mine plan". 5 samples in total - how many ore bodies do they have Cassini, Miitel, Durkin North and Long. So what - at best two from Cassini.
MCR Price at posting:
$1.43 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Not Held
