Thursday, July 28, 2011

Cerro Casale: The capex estimate goes up again, what a shockah

Back in April, IKN posted this note that showed how the estimates for cap-ex for the 75% Barrick (ABX) owned Cerro Casale bigbadmutha project in Chile had risen from U$1.4Bn in 2004 to U$5.25Bn. So here we are just three months later and according to today's ABX NR, capex is shifted up to a cool U$6Bn. Here's the updated chart on the white elephant.


Back in April your humble scribe wrote,

"So anyway, it's now been fixed at $5.25Bn and it's hardly likely to change again from that number, is it? After all, they wouldn't underestimate and then revise upwards later on purpose now, would they?".

Be clear, this sentiment applies equally to the new U$6Bn number.