Not a screw up... Xstrata wouldn't have simply walked away from...

Not a screw up... Xstrata wouldn't have simply walked away from a 250 mill investment - if HIG had forced the issue then the DFS would have been delivered as scheduled with the hydro option.

It made sense to check out the gas option. Gas should be lower capital cost but offset by a little higher opex. End result would probably be a better looking return on investment. Also the time to build a gas power station would have been a bit quicker than a large hydro dam so it would have had no material impact on start up date. My conclusion - they did the right thing.