I thought about that as well for a while !! Mind you I think they did the responsible thing. They have expertise in bauxite, and they are a very long way off determining if this type of rare earth deposit will be able to be a profitable, commercial venture for The Company and it's shareholders. The price per tonne of this type of rare earth sells for a very handsome price, but they don't know how much they have yet .... nor the total costs to mine.
So in summary, I think it was responsible for ABX to let the market know they have found some rare earths, and yhat they intend to investigate the potential profitability. I also think it was responsible not to mark the latest Ann as price sensitive... they have a vast amount of work to do before they decide if they will proceed to mine. In this case, I would hope the Company takes the time to scrutinize and completely understand the rare earths market first. A caveat before they proceed to mine this time, should be to lock in watertight forward dated sales contracts. They have been screwed before on bauxite deals so this is a key milestone to enter this new market IMO.
GLTH
ABX Price at posting:
15.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
