"I have a hard time understanding how anyone puts a 'deadline' on a two (maybe 3) party negotiation for a multibillion dollar project."

Not really hard to understand. In fact, it's probably more common for negotiations to have a deadline than not; many negotiations including multi-lateral or bi-lateral national negotiations have deadlines, just to ensure the parties are focused on the issues and to find common ground within reasonable timelines. In our case, the 120 day deadline for a decision was part of an agreement both parties agreed to and if the terms that trigger the deadline have been met, then the 120 day deadline should be enforced, and if not, there should be clear communication to the shareholders why not. Shareholders should not be left to speculations on most important issues which appreaed to be the case with cuu management. JMO