BHP will be shutting down its nickel operation in WA entirely from October, so the Kwinana nickel refinery, the Kalgoorlie smelter and its major mines at Mt Keith and Leinster will be all on care and maintenance, which draws a rather gloomy picture for BSX as well.
Old mate SW has been comparing the Vietnamese deposit to BHP's Mt Keith mine, which couldn't be more unfortunate in my view. I'm also really not sure why they keep delaying the DFS. Everyone knows that on these nickel prices, the Ta Khoa project profitability such as IRR and NPV would be rather slim, if positive at all, but it's no excuse to have a delay over a year. CTM, another Ni developer used an assumed $20,000 avg. Ni price in its recently published DFS even though the spot price is subsantially below that value. If the Ni prices recover to those levels used in the DFS, you know that the project might get funded and they have a plan to execute on right away.
BSX Price at posting:
4.1¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
