announcement out, page-16

Hmmm....I can see the thrust of this announcement. 900+ million tonnes of IO is good when one looks at the number alone. What must be appreciated is the geometry of the deposit. How much OB to remove to get to pay grade? How much capital input required for extraction and beneficiation? If the company can demonstrate that they can get BID at a low strip ratio, it makes the project that much more appealing to institutional investors.
150+million tonnes of BID at a v. low strip ratio lends the project a considerably lower requirement for start up capitalisation, and the appeal of not having to beneficiate the ore prior to shipping really will peg this as a low cost startup (assuming transport is sorted). At 15 mill a year output, that's a good decade with low cost input.
I see this as a strategic announcement. I appreciate the financial position of the company, but at only 1.2Mill for the program, it strikes me as a calculated move.