RE:BHP cashed up looking to replace low copper grades ?Well, you know Marine, the simple fact is that whatever initial offer for Casino is made by RIO, all the other majors know that the bid can be upped and there will still be ample room for goodly profits to be made at a higher bid price.
Party A offers 40 cents for a dollar widget, Party B then jumps in at 50 cents and maybe party C jumps in at 60 cents. All will make profits, just to differing degrees.
My point being, the PEA's NPV was excessively conservative, and only gave HALF the value of the mineral wealth at Casino. It's already baked into the cake that the buyout will be north of $2 billion CAD. Any grade school kid can run the simple math. Yes, I know that some suitors may play the lowball offer game, but all it takes is for one major to realize what they are looking and decide to operate in reality instead of a fantasyland of unrealistically low NPVs associated with an outdated PEA.
To prove my point, weren't there multiple bidders who were bidding on the "blue sky" of Great Bear? GB's PEA (which doesn't exist) is $0, it was ALL blue sky. Double the headline NPV and add in blue sky, that is what the majors will be bidding on. A major has about as much chance of snagging Casino for less than $10 USD a share as the Baltimore Orioles have in winning the WS next season!!
Casino is in play, we just don't know how badly the majors want it........yet.