Yeah - I am not a shareholder and probably for this reason so I...

Yeah - I am not a shareholder and probably for this reason so I won't be bothering them. Glencore are famous for getting the better of junior mining companies in negotiations and metals price contracts (for ore and for concentrate offtakes), and even if they have changed their spots and are genuine partners and want these junior copper producers to succeed - which is possible - there is no way to tell because Glencore isn't going to to tell and TNC basically just put out an announcement saying how big and great Glencore are, but anyone looking for the details about how much upside Glencore are capturing in this deal is left with a 'trust me bro' announcement from TNC that they are on standard commercial terms, there is no detail on cost sharing, water content, nuisance element penalties, penalties of oxide and supergene minerals, gold credits, grade tolerances, actual metal prices received, who pays for toll milling at what price per tonne, grade reconciliations, disputes, payment terms etc etc

It's hard to get a read on what Glencore are actually doing there in Mt Isa, but they would have their own agenda with the X41 Copper Mine running out of mine life (which itself is debatable), the age and cost profile of keeping the copper concentrator going, a royalty and political argument with the current state government, their sale of a perfectly fine open pit and underground Ernest Henry operation to EVN. I question exactly what Glencores plans are for Mt Isa and the NW QLD area, because they say they are committed to Lead and Zinc concentrators and smelters, and other base metal operations in NW QLD and committed to the Townsville copper refinery but how are they going to do that without a copper concentrator in Mt Isa?

If I had to guess - Glencore are just keeping their options open with the QLD state government and talking about treating other miners ore in NW QLD as a short-term PR exercise, and maybe to allow a more planned and elegant shutdown of the Mt Isa copper concentrator but might just be in a holding pattern waiting to see what happens with metal prices and the state government, they will look pretty stupid if the ALP is re-elected and forces them to divest their Mt Isa assets, and/or metal prices go to the moon.....

I agree with others - with toll treatment the closest efficient mill should usually win the ore because of its geographical advantage and hence cost of transportation advantage - especially in Australia in a highish fuel cost and labor cost environment, if ore goes past the closest mill to another further away mill then that tells us the closer mill is either full or its run by d%$kheads, or the further away mill wants the ore more for some reason.