They are discounting by up to 90% of some of the production, and...

They are discounting by up to 90% of some of the production, and 75% of other bits.

No they aren't, they are discounting current production by 10% (ie risk factor 90%), the near-production at 25% and the further-afield production at 50%.

Seems pretty sensible to me considering Conti's impressive record of failing to meet almost every deadline they set themselves, together with their ability to blow out capex forecasts by up to a factor of five.

By that method, this report has to some extent managed to avoid the pitfall so many other reports have fallen into - valuing Conti on what Conti says they will do, rather than on what actually happens.

That said, they are still pretty optimistic. I liked the statement "Assuming a 10 MMtpa ROM is reached by 2015, we estimate annual EBITDA in the $60-$70 million range."

Sounds great but do we really see Conti producing 10Mtpa by 2015, given their past record? It's going to be a struggle. But IMO this is the key to Conti's future success - its mines are comparatively both low volume and low margin, so individually they are not going to contribute much. To turn $3M EBITDA into $60-70 they need a sum of parts, each mine contributing a little and creating a big whole.