The Spanish government has fallen, page-4

Who are you going to sack, fezza?

The government? Good luck.

Oh, management. The poor blighters trying to negotiate the exploitation of mineral assets.

Mining potash generates staggering volumes of salt. The Spaniards know this, are stuck with the toxic legacy of earlier potash exploitation, and have a genuine civic obligation to get it right this time.

While investors may glory in Spain's nil-royalty mining regime, this also means government gains very little from mining. Where is their motivation to assist? A few jobs? They want the economic activity ONLY if the environmental degradation is dealt with properly - up front before mining starts.

Which is where we are and have been for several years. HFR doesn't want to reinter all its tailings or process out the salt and try to sell it - the cost and consequences for profitability are very high, which comes straight off market capitalisation. Hence the stand-off.

HFR investors need to recognise this, not indulge in sneering and jeering which helps no one, notably themselves.

I am seriously long and underwater HFR. The only way my position can be retrieved is if management can find the practical means to meet the reasonable expectations of a sovereign first-world country.

I will sing soft songs to St Barbara, the patron saint of miners, not because I am religious, but because the outcome is entirely out of my hands.

Ash