pb, Whilst samples may be taken along the proposed route until...

pb,

Whilst samples may be taken along the proposed route until you actually cut away the overburden you cannot know for certain what will be found and how easy the rock will fracture. The deeper the rock often the harder the rock and the more blasting required.

The same goes for any foundations on a new house.The builder will never fixed price the cut and rock removal as they to do not know what they will find even in a small area of a house block let alone over 330 km. It will always be a schedule of rate.

I suspect Rambo is in the right order of magnitude as to the loss they have recognized.

The actual words in the 30 June Directors report was "The Roy Hill contract loss recognizes that it is unlikely that an outcome can be negotiated which supports a position where the company can at least recover costs incurred on the contract"

I see this as different from an expectation that they dont think they will make a profit at the end.

It will just not be negotiated, they will have to fight every inch of the way to recover their costs and profit element and there is no certainty that they wont get tripped up somewhere along the line. Whether they would be happy to just recover their costs and forgo the profit element is another matter.