These valuations seem to have been plucked from thin air!What's...

These valuations seem to have been plucked from thin air!

What's there to compare to? One Steel and Blue Scope (market caps of $3.7b and $4.0bn), but these companies are stand alone (operate outside of JVs).

Value of BGD will depend on JV arrangements with the Chinese and how much value the Chinese place on the risk money spent by Boulder to date.

Without bringing iron ore to the deal (BGD dont have a deposit), BGD are only bringing to the table their risk money, business plan, approvals etc. The Chinese would probably only value this at about 10% (based on my limited understanding). This means BGD would get their hands on 10% of the production output in a JV with the Chinese.

Here are some very rough numbers, based on this:
Output: 5 mil t.p.a. of finished product
Price: $650 per tonne (estimate offtake billet price)
Gross Revenue: $3.25bn p.a.
Net Profit (say 20%): $650m p.a.
BGD JV share (say 10%): $65m p.a.

On these numbers, a market cap of $500m max. could be expected which would be about 90c peak. Not much really.

JV terms will be different if BGD delivers the ore to the deal (say 50:50). But the ore will come at a cost. Presuming the Saudis are still partner here, BGD will probably need to issue them with equity, which will mean a dilution.

Too many unkowns for a meaningful valuation, but "multiples of $1" seems unlikely imo.