Gin, a better measure is to look at Shares available for shorting which is a fraction of the SOI, and then to look at that as a percentage of daily volume. I'd expect there to be about 25m shares in the trading pool, so less than 25m shares are shortable. Hence the shorts percentage is at least 25%.
Baosteel and POSCO are involved in the project, so funding is not as much a concern. The top20 also hold 90%+. Not sure when the costing for the project was done, but as a rule of thumb, add 10% for 2010 and 2011, minus about 5% so far in 2012. You'll notice production costs are on the way down for a lot of reporting companies.
The other issue with the stock price, is that Black Rock's Australian Share Fund is winding down, because of investor redemptions. That's more forced selling, they only fell below the 5% threshold in mid June. So they probably have a little more to sell before they're out of the market (for good I hope, good riddance!).
I reckon, between the mystery holders behind the margin agreements with MacqBank, Black Rock redemptions, and the Short anything commodity related, well explains the plunge in AQA's share price.
AQA Price at posting:
$2.23 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held