hi mate, I took the difficult decision to sell this morning. I...

hi mate,

I took the difficult decision to sell this morning. I do not believe the slip issue in Turkey will be fixed quickly so they can return to operating anytime soon. The comparatively small spill event at Copler in 2022 knocked out operations for the better part of 6 months. The fallout from this event legally, environmentally, politically etc will not be over quickly. The 2022 event and some chatter that there were Turkish engineering concerns raised in 2023 aren't going to work in their favour, even if this it is found to be somewhat of a naturally occurring event (I have no understanding of the underlying causes).

I still see random auto-generated hotcopper BHP posts about legal cases relating to the Samarco TSF failure in 2015. That was another scale altogether but shows to a degree how long these things can drag on (Samarco restarted operations 6 years after the event).

There are also massive ramifications for their future social licence to operate in the country. Since Turkey is their major growth engine (Copler oxide plant, Hod Maden, C2 etc) that is a big problem. All the other assets are relatively mature, although will probably have life extensions.

This is all gut feel stuff. Reserves in the ground aren't useful if the government won't let you dig them out.