An irony of the all singing all dancing development version of Wonarah is that it reduces the opex costs and therefore the leverage to the phosphate price. The add $75m npv for some small percentage rise in the phosphate price was Dean's calculation on the cheapo ($200m capex) staged development option on Wonarah. The Verte announcement completely blows that out of the water?
I think it is time Drummond was held to account. If Wonarah now has opex costs only slightly higher than the Namibian project (which incidentally could have far lower capex costs than Wonarah), then what is the justification for developing Wonarah first?
I think Drummond is probably more concerned about being a big hero in Australia with his Government friends (all that job creation stuff) and with his Verte friends (who are getting far too good a deal at our expense) than he cares about us long standing shareholders. The development timescales on both projects are now similar if the Namibian one can go ahead next year as a DSO. Of course the Wonarah project with its higher capex costs would mean Drummond could pay himself more.
Get him to justify which project will make us (the original shareholders) richer quicker. If he can't, then we should get rid of him. There is no place for self interested leach directors in this business, IMO.
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