RE:KAY BABY!!!
You may be right. RioT has more staying power than anybody else with skin in the game - Mongolia, and we outside minority shareholders left over from the IVN days are generally weak players. RioT has other capex expenditures in their massive global portfolio in uncertain economic times - they can push OT down the road, and if the Mongolians writhe around unhappily, and TRQ shareholders lose faith, they can benefit from the delays.
Remember that Mongolia never put up cash for their investment - they borrowed against future earnings, and with interest accruing they are very unhappy about how long it will now take to get free cash flow ... a situation which worsens with compounding interest by every delay ... so who really is being tough at the bargaining table? Kay was awfully quick to jump on this stale and seemingly ridiculous argument that boils down to whether or not there will be an interest offset between the late tax interest rate and the interest rate paid by the Mongolians if the money paid was a loan to them and not a tax prepayment. We are talking shaved points on a small sum in the grand state of affairs. So they will head off for a long and expensive arbitration the costs of which probably come close to what is at issue between them? Posturing. RioT is telling the Mongolians they can wait until the cows come home. And if TRQ minority shareholders don't like it they are welcome to sel out for pennies on the dollar of uynderlying, delayed, obscured value.