Merrills report on MMX assumed a haulage price of $10/tonne - so that is one independent source that gives you a ballpark figure of haulage rates on the rail/port combo.
Merrills stated this was increased from an internal MMX assumption of $7/tonne, in order to be conservative on their valuation of MMX.
Your next question might be: why is it conservative to INCREASE the estimate...wouldn’t it be conservative to DECREASE the haulage revenue assumption?
The answer is YES, if you own the infrastructure. However Merrills report attributed no value to infra for MMX. They assumed it would be owned by a third party, or the government.
Therefore the haulage assumption in the Merrills report, is a COST to MMX’s export of ore, rather than a REVENUE to MMX’s ownership of infra.
What does that mean about the eventual haulage price the tender winner will be able to charge? Nothing really – it will come down to negotiations, how the government operates the tender process, and the competitiveness of the bids. Although we can assume that around $10/tonne is probably a reasonable estimate until someone can come up with some more concrete info.
Surfie, we await your post with interest.
MMX Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
