The Care & Maintenance plan is based around the economics of...

The Care & Maintenance plan is based around the economics of making money from the Sulphide ores, rather than what is happening with macro-economics in the resources area..

I'd interpreted the intention as finishing the sulphide ores out of the Zeta open pit, while blending in the remaining Sulphide ores from Plutus Stage 1, and any oxide, transitional & Sulphide ores from Plutus Stage 2 that have already been uncovered. The Zeta ore has already demonstrated its processing credentials and the Stage 1 ore was commended in the quarterly as having "had a positive impact to the overall copper recovery for Q1 FY15".

If this is the case, it will leave around 70kt of Cu in the Plutus open pit reserves at year end from Stages 3 onward, which management will be reluctent to develop because of the added cost of waste stripping.

Therefore, I believe the decision to enter Care-and-maintenance has already been made and relates to the physical completion of the current stages in the open pits. The decision to exit Care-and-maintenance will be driven, in my opinion, by successfully obtaining funding to develop the underground, at which time, it would be likely that the Plutus pit would be reopened to provide some cash-flow and re-tune the processing plant, while awaiting the sweet underground ores.