"Where do you estimate phosphate prices need to be for us to begin production, I understood our costs to be the $30-$35 range."
Tough question where the price needs to be as it would be based on their acceptable margin of return which we don't know all the costs associated for break even. Typically businesses would shoot for roughly 35% profit margin. Oil/gas, lower; technology, higher, imo.
Obviously if their costs were $30-35/mtu they would still be all over this at current prices of $100/mtu @65-70%profit margin instead of waiting.
My belief is that those numbers you're quoting are the costs of extraction which I had understood as just <$40/mtu. Then we now know there was a biggy that was reduced in transportation costs. The profit sharing agreement with Baolin is unknown. These are their (2) biggest costs, I think, above extraction plus whatever else. So just for grins, as a worst case scenario, suppose we double that number to $80/mtu we would need roughly $120/mtu to be acceptable. That was the price we were at coincidentally when Nightroads made his call and we were "waiting on the processing plant". I believe Raoul had visions of being a fully run mining, processing, and chemical plant initially which takes big bucks from increased production at an acceptable rate of return.
So that's my WAG, lol. Incidentily, I believe our dip will be short lived and not dip and line out @ $90/mtu like it did in 2009 following the exuberance coming out of 2008, imo.
