not the end but new beginning, page-40

hi Taboon, I agree that "close to surface" i/o is attractive on paper, but we are looking long term here, maybe 20 yrs plus, this close to surface stuff is very nice when the i/o price is reasonable, but the price is not reasonable, it was not many years ago when you could buy all the i/o you wanted in the whole world for $15.00.per ton, take a bit of inflation into consideration and the ore has still got plenty more to drop yet. I have done business with Chinese many years ago and the philosophy is that if it is born in China, grows in China or you dig it out the ground in China, the maximum value it has to the Chinese philosophy is exactly ZERO. B.H.P , Vale and the rest are not the price setters here it is the Chinese, they will pay as little as they can for any commodity once they feel they are in the box seat, that is why the volume of i/o has been has been ramped up by bhp, rio, etc, nothing to do with competitive edge, its too with staying alive, the Chinese love to do business with biggest, it gives them a hard on, so lets all hope we can hold and manage with minimum staff at fms until the price improves, maybe 10- 20 years, that's all folks, chew over that for a while.