simandou concession cancelled, page-9

Guys this is not significant news. In analyst reports they were completely leaving out Simandou in a sum of parts valueation of RIO.

Why?

It is (was?) VERY early stage, still conceptual in nature, not a single brick laid. There would not be a mine there for many years even if things had gone to plan.

Mining in Africa. Know how many Westernern companies own lucrative mines in Africa? Very few. The resource nationalism there is even worse than for oil because seizing a mine doesn't get as much attention as screwing the Exxon's and Conoco's. Many mines have been built with western investors money, very few have not been nationalised today. The ones that are still Western owned tend to be relatively new operations.

You couple the conceptual nature, the sovereign risk (keep in mind the Guinean government already gave notice of a dispute of concession some weeks back - that should have told everyone how this was going to end up) and that means it's not any signicant part of what the RIO group is worth.

when the market opened rio wasn't even down as much as bhp.