prhb you raise some good points. Regardless of their varacity,...

prhb you raise some good points. Regardless of their varacity, Hanlong has indeed asked for additional DD (or rather the CDB has). It could be that CGNPC fall back on this as a means of further delaying a bid for either party however, I seem to remember some months ago that CGNPC had arranged something in the order of $23 billion in finance in order to go shopping, presumably for uranium assets.

Re the Nab gov stalling the ML in order to leverage a better deal for themselves, there may or may not be some truth in this however, recent assurances in the last couple of weeks by minister Katali that there will be no problem issuing the EXT ML although he didn't know when, combined with a clear statement in the EXT annual report that the ML was expected before the end of calendar 2011, would appear to de-risk all of the above significantly. Nov 11 has been touted by Hohnen as the date by which an announcement by CGNPC re a bid for KAH will be made so I guess we have another 11 days or so before the next chapter begins.