the real company maker now won't just be the tonnage. If they can get 100Mt of 60%Fe with low impurities, its how much they can ship that counts.
Will they get contracts to truck 1Mtpa or 2Mtpa? Will they get a rail deal to increase capacity to 5Mtpa or 10Mpa? Will they sell on the spot market?
If they can get a resource of 500Mt across all their deposits then, the transportation becomes even more relevant. Could they increase shipping to say 50Mtpa like FMG?
Who would you rather own shares in: A company with 1Billion tonnes shipping 1Mt per year, or; A company with 100Million tonnes, shipping 5Mt per year?
I'd go for the second personally.
Why I like UMC is that it has some of the highest grade ore around. Check out the grades and impurities from other pre-producer iron ore companies and you'll find they are usually worse (lower grades - usually 57%ish Fe, and high impurities Si > 4%, Al> 3%, sometimes P > 0.01%).
When crunch-time comes... the highest grade deposits are the ones which will survive.
Joel
UMC Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held