RE:RE:Clock ticking towards MayAbsolutely not.
The buy-in to deposits not discovered by the government is not an expropriation but a pre-emotive right to purchase.
The mechanics of the OTTLC purchase price paid by Erdenes has never been explained, but at a minimum it would have been a proportional share of all exploration expenditures, plus an amount reflecting the value-added by the positive outcome of discovery.
Their royalty will have to be based upon the net value of their equity, or some other measure, but it isn’t ever going to be a 34% giveaway, especially for ETG - we gave away up to 80% of HNE, Heruga, and whatever else the JV ground holds in exchange for similar treatment of our retained interests to that secured by IVN/TRQ - which was their responsibility and expense, not ours.
Or so our position has stood. Don’t lose sight of what a high price we paid to have IVN make the rather obvious drilling we could have executed ourselves. It was pretty clear the Hugo North deposit extended onto our then 100% ground. It was pretty clear the trend may have extended South towards what became Heruga. If we had auctioned our ground in 2004 a very high price might have been paid by any number of interested parties. And there is still much more drilling to be done on the JV.
No dice to giving up 1/3.
cg