Well, its hardly a great royalty if its over the first 1.5MOz....

Well, its hardly a great royalty if its over the first 1.5MOz. These are the crucial ounces when you have the highest costs per ounce, are carrying your highest debt burden, you have the greatest vulnerability to outside factors, to metallurgical SNAFU's, everything.

Not like it matters for an IGC holder, assuming the deal goes through; in theory you'd be paid out in cash. However, methinks the stink of being paid in NKP scrip is wafting stronger - it would cut NKP's financial commitments down considerably. Of course TS won't accept that, he wants his filthy lucre clogging up his back pocket.

The problem is...if he drives too hard a bargain, Nkwe will have to give up.

As for Xstrata carrying the flame to fund the roject to 50%, did you catch the latest rights issue by XST? It was a three-fer-two, to raise enough to pay 15% of their nett debt. Xstrata is absolutely on the floor, out cold, for these high-flying bulldust deals.

This also assumes XST is around in 2.5 to 3 years. It could all go very, very badly for them. I mean, look at the nickel, copper and aluminium stockpiles. Nickel is at record highs. Its getting ugly.