Although the effort is appreciated I do believe there are a few mistakes and false assumptions in your post.
I think you are right that Chinese steel production curbs are not the only factor, with the Covud delta being a major one as well, it is a big factor. It is exactly because steel production has been so high (well above what the CCP approved) that there is now the prospect of a big cut in steel production. This has only been recently confirmed by China and clamp downs have also started recently and are weighing heavily on the IO price. The question remains whether they will be able to maintain these production cuts if or when steel prices go up.
It's a good thing Hawsons will have most off take partners outside of China for sure, but I think its important to understand that IO is a commodity so the price is based on supply and demand with most of the demand coming from China. So China will still have a big impact on the IO produced even if it doesn't go there.
The PFS was done using a IO price in the mid 60's ($63usd) from memory so not $85 and the current price is about $140 usd. So still more then double of the PFS. Also they assumed a grade gap price difference of $25 usd between 62 and 70%. Currently it's around $10 per percentage point so it would about $80USD (70% IO might trade around $220 USD at current prices) so there is plenty of buffer.
I am not sure where you $200M from Mitsui from but I believe it was around 5 to 6M towards the BFS and about 60 to 80M towards building the mine. This was also based on an off take of 2Mtpa being 20% of production so I don't believe it's realistic to get full funding through off take partners (would be nice though!)
I fully agree demand for the high grade IO will only go up. If they can make some into pellets that would be even better.
HIO Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)
