The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[dewophile]

their initial estimate was astonishingly innacurate - no doubt about that. what strikes me is that just the ferrochrome processing plant is going to cost nearly 2x more than the initial estimate for the entire project at 1.8B. This is way outside my knowledge area but my guess is that the plant will be state of the art to maximize efficiency and cliff was basing cost on older model plants. this may not be all bad since processing chromite into ferrochrome is apparently extremely costly so increasing up front commitment to new design may pay dividends later

in particular electricity costs are astounding. i just read recently that one of the major south african producers is idling a plant to return power back to the grid

bottom line is by midyear when prefeas is done cliff really needs to spell out whether there is goign to be reasonable ROI (and even if there is i think cliff should find a partner since 3B over 2 years is much to much capital spend for a company their size - especially after a 5B purchase last year)