SBM take-over off the table? Who else?, page-2

That toll processing arrangement is only designed to be short term. The long term plan is for SBM to own the ore sources.

The province plan is all very preliminary but some of the ore sources highlighted have issues.

- One pit is refractory and needs specialized plant. Considering it's only 1.4g/t ore it seems questionable whether it will be viable.
- The open pit cutback is 300m deep and would require major capex.

They have also mentioned building a new processing plant if the required capacity is above 1.7Mtpa (otherwise they'd just upgrade the current which is 1.4Mtpa). You'd think if they went down the new plant path they'd probably build it larger by a decent amount since the marginal cost to make it 3Mtpa is probably minor over being say 2.5Mtpa if they have enough ore.

After reading this preliminary Province Plan I'm not sure if it makes a combination with SBM any less likely. SBM do not seem to be in any hurry though which isn't doing their share price any favours.