RE: Last week of FEB. The market already thinks Ecuador's terms are far too onerous and this article makes it clear that Kinross is putting the responsibility for it's situation in Ecuador directly on the Ecuador government. I think it's a pretty ballsy stunt and it wouldn't surprise me if it was planned all along.
At this point Kinross and EcuaCorriente have Ecuador over a barrel to some extent. Ecuador has gone pretty deep committing itself and promoting itself as "open for business" when clearly they jumped the gun on that. It would not take much to completely ruin what little credibility Ecuador may have built for itself to this point. IMO Ecuador is in the weaker position at the moment. It will be interesting to see if EcuaCorriente sides with Kinross on this. If they do Ecuador will really be in it.
Yeah Kinross overextended themselves and yeah they have to suck back and reload but when the market already has the idea that it's Ecuador that is being unreasonable [and I agree] it won't take much PR by Kinross to reinforce that perception in the market and as we all know, perception is everything.
If EcuaCorriente decides to go with Kinross on this it will look very bad on Ecuador. I think at this point Ecuador has to do some serious thinking about their position because this will make or break them for future investment. It's going to be very interesting to see who blinks.
In the end Dmm is small potatoes and will probably get their contract despite what happens with the big guys but if the big guys leave I think it will affect Dmm's price quite a bit.
In the end I think there's too much to lose by all involved for this to not work but it looks like it'll be a Mexican Standoff for a while.