BP, Sorry, I was being flippant when I said months, I thought it...

BP,

Sorry, I was being flippant when I said months, I thought it was obvious that I was joking. But, I didn't intend it to be the main point of my post. The important thing for me is that the debt must be gone or seriously reduced before the $13 target is achievable.

You can interpret my silence as meaning it was Saturday night and I have another life outside of HC, where I get to go out to dinner and drink red wine. But now its Sunday morning and I'm back.

I thought your capex question was answered by a couple of other posters.

Capex has nothing to do with principal debt reductions. Debt reductions are paid from surplus cash, i.e. out of NPAT.

Note: This is not NPATDA, as Depreciation & Amortisation are not cash costs, they are a tax accounting tool, which allows a business to allocate capital expenditure from previous accounting periods against current revenues.

I'm not sure about the $2 & $2.60, but I have thought these to be the same cost which increased by $0.60 per tonne, to cover the 15% contribution to the VLOC's. I could be wrong on this as I'm just working from memory. If I'm not sure, I use the higher figure to get the most conservative outcome.

Your 175% R&D scenario sounds correct. The Govt regularly offers such incentives to encourage business to spend money in areas that they are trying to stimulate. Things like the First Home Buyers Schemes to stimulate home building & Instant Asset Write Off for business purchases under $20,000 to stimulate equipment sales / infrastructure renewal.

Hope this clarifies things a bit.

PS. I'm spending today in my other life, so probably won't be on HC again until tomorrow.