rubbing salt into the wound...., page-2

Yes, Justreading there have been rumours that the Chinese ( ie a State-backed group ) will seek approval to build a third ( after BHP-Rio and FMG) iron ore infrastructure in the Pilbara to free up deposits as held by juniors and ensure early development of those deposits and thereby provide extra competition to BHP and Rio.

One wonders why the UMC Board did not wait to see the outcome of the WA government negotiations with BHP and Rio re haulage of junior company's ores or the possible development of a Chinese-backed infrastructure. Would waiting another 12 months have mattered given the high quality and undoubted value of the 100 million tonnes forming the "core" of Railway --- material which would yield a operating margin as high as $40-50 per tonne to BHP if mined at the present time ( ie $ 4 -5 billion dollars) ?

As shareholders await the agenda papers for the EGM to "approve" the sale of UMC to BHP, there is a distinct possibility that the " other assets" will have been disposed of. As mentioned previously, following the statements in the September Quarterly that the "other assets" had virtually no value, the directors are technically free to dispose of those assets without shareholder approval. However, a contrary legal view could be that as the disposal of such assets is related to the BHP deal, then no such disposal should take place prior to shareholders being able to vote on the " deal" in it's entirety ( ie on all related aspects ).

Regardless of the legalities ( which will materialise over time ), the UMC Board has reacted too quickly to the BHP approach and should have allowed the CRM deal to develope with every chance of a huge gain for shareholders over the long term. New discoveries such as the high-grade core of Railway are rare and are only made today because of the overburden cover which has concealed Railway since the 1960's ( and earlier).