Ann: China Pit Scoping Study Finalised, page-46

If i'm a farmer with land, and a binary choice between planting wheat or barley, i choose....
If i'm a miner with machinery, and a binary choice between mining copper or zinc, i choose....
If i'm an investor with capital, and a binary choice between investing in BHP or MYL, i choose....

Utility and Opportunity Cost never disappear. Nor does Adam Smith's analogy of the choice a hunter faces between hunting beaver or deer.

I was asked why i haven't invested in MYL I gave an honest answer and explained the reasoning. Opportunity Cost and Utility of other investments, including copper miners. They are comparative from the perspective of a speculator and cashflows. As base metals, the price or properties of Copper and Zinc aren't comparative. They have positive price correlation to each other and industrial production indexes, but they aren't substitutes.

Finally, what determines the price of a metal. The marginal buyer and seller. If you can find the marginal producer of copper that can profitablity produce a pound of copper at USD 60 cents, then it will trade at USD 60 cents. But the marginal cost of copper has skyrockected as most new copper mines are now underground (it costs x2 to x3 more to mine the same product underground), that's why MYL talks about the copper credits. I don't care who mines what/where, i just concentrate on the money and the probability of getting it back