Many mining stocks have lower dividends to provide cash flow for...

Many mining stocks have lower dividends to provide cash flow for expansion in comparison to other stocks such as bank stocks. BHP vs CBA.

Mak's MD said that dividends would be paid out soon after the mine was up and running. This is due to the fact that many of the directors (himself included) are major share holders and would benefit strongly from dividend payments.

My view (personal and unsubstantiated) is that the dividends will not be paid out until after the BON project is put into action. This will be a large capex project and will require 100-300mil Capex to fund the onshore equipment and beneficiation. This puts dividends off until 2011 by which time the cashflow (EBIT) should be approaching 600mil yearly(based on company projections and mining 3MT of RP per year). If 25% of that is paid out as dividends then you are looking at approximately $1 per share roughly based on a share total of 125mil shares (some dilution expected).

These are only calculated guesses so do your own research.