Yes I would agree if Eritrea had a whole host of other potential...

Yes I would agree if Eritrea had a whole host of other potential mines, but they may assume this is the big one and so could slip to an Indian or Chinese buyer and as someone mentioned before they could get political Koudos with that gov.
I have also heard that whilst this is open pit, stabilisation of the mine walls cannot be achieved unlike traditional rock mining, look at the super pit at Kalgoorlie. Cannot see effectively rock salt holding those walls up. Maybe this is the reason they do traditional solution mining.