Ann: Scoping Study Results Greater Duchess Project, page-33

Some fair points made there but on Point c) Downstream, its reasonable to say that Glencore might have half a foot already out the door and they are tough negotiators but fortunately for everyone there are numerous other buyers of Cu concentrate throughout the world and there are existing rail lines and export facilities in Townsville where many other Mt Isa and Cloncurry area copper concentrate producers already export from. If copper prices stay high then Glencore may want to revise their closure plans and/or look at disposing/selling them because closing a copper business down during a copper boom is going to look pretty stupid.

Other milling options are out there, Osborne Mill is getting a bit empty, even Ernest Henry is not using its full capacity since its an underground operation, it looks like the Eloise Mill might be full thanks to A1M's exploration success but Cloncurry needs a decent modern mill to unlock all the copper in that area (not the running joke that is the Great Australia plant but a proper modern plant) and another option is a new mill located somewhere around Duchess because there are numerous small high grade stranded copper deposits in that area without a nearby mill that would become viable. Obviously a new mill is a capital cost, but if no-one builds new copper mines and mills, then where is the price of copper going to go from here?