Now in general if a $40mil investment gives you a $1bill return...

Now in general if a $40mil investment gives you a $1bill return over 5 years - you do everthing you can to make the $40 mill investment

Thats the point, where do you spend $40mill and get a 400% return every year for 5 years. Of course if this was the case you would do it. You are under-estimating the costs involved of a logisitcs organisation. There is no way you could do the job of a logistics company as efficiently as they can. You can also bet your bottom dollar they are not making 400% revenues on costs.

My advice is get yourself some real figures of what it would cost for a logisitcs company to take a resource, transport it to a port, prepare it for international distribution and deliver to its destination. Then do the comparison.