re: Ann: UCL: Sandpiper Phosphate Resource Up... When Rio sold...

re: Ann: UCL: Sandpiper Phosphate Resource Up... When Rio sold Wonarah, BHP sold the previously WMC owned Phosphate Hill to Incitec Pivot for around $200 million. Incitec got a steal as it will cost you around US$1 billion to build a DAP plant today. Incitec's share price then went from $10 to $200 as the fertilizer bull market kicked into gear. Both Rio and BHP had no clue as to the importance of the fertilizer story to global markets and hence why both are now scrambling to get back into this space.

So we highlight the fact again, the economics of rock mining are secondary to the economics of DAP production and this is why NMDC is looing at Wonarah for a fully integrated production hub as opposed to Namibia. DSO rock was always an opportunistic business model and with the collapse in prices in 2008, you have a collapse in willingness to follow up on that model again (quite rightly so).

In order to produce SSP you need sulphuric acid in bulk. Where do you plan we get that in Namibia? Sulphuric acid is plentiful in Australia. And what about freshwater? Namibia's water resources largely go into the countries in situ leaching uranium mines and there isn't much spare capacity. There is oodles of freshwater at Wonarah and we do not have to compete with any other end users because it is a stranded resource close to the minesite ...

Follow the big fish and they are not nibbling at Namibia ...