RE: EUA23 Sep 2025 16:46
I think there are at least three reasons why they didn't do that: (i) the initial hope that the original credible party would have ultimately executed on a transaction at some point in 2022, which presumably from the board's perspective took time to fade away; (ii) the fact that the MT DFS was the next development milestone, and once it was ready, it was probably clear that potential buyers might not have wanted to be encumbered with the Sinosteel agreement (many comments to this effect in RNSs passim); and (iii) the ongoing sanctions risk. Even if Sino was not prevented by sanctions per se, and they could have developed MT themselves, it would have been a huge risk to take and would have involved all manner of difficult regulatory hurdles to jump over, especially when it became clear that the Nyud work had to be written off in the accounts and the sanctions environment could have tightened at any moment. Given their entire strategy has been about exiting from Russia, then activating Sino was only ever a last resort. The fact they haven't activated it suggests that there are strategic options they're pursuing, which is all to the good in my view. I couldn't care less about the share price.