South32 Termination My take(guess) is that South32 originally got involved with AZ with a long term intent to buy the company outright. AZ mgt, not wanting to agree to terms under market limited their particpation to an amount that still financed their drill and ops expenses. Now the resource is clearly much larger than anyone imagined and the project is too big for South32 to take on. AZ mgt. has proven that it is worth more than what South32 can handle and South32 very likely has access to the hole data that has yet to be released. South32 knows that they can't unload their massive share holding on the open market, so they'll wait for the buyout by a larger player like everyone else.