It makes sense that Mitsubishi is releasing it,s shares to some interested party who has been accumulating shares over the past few months .They want to buy promise to become the builder of a smelter for pebble .Whoever wishes to make a bid for Pebble must build up enough shares to counter bid the 20% of shares by Rio Tinto. Even though it,s highly unlikely that they also want to jump into a serious bidding war,they can cause trouble during the bidding process.

I am certain that some of the biggest Chinese smelting companies are very interested in Pebble but will gain little chance due to strategic considerations for the state of Alaska and the Americans will prefer an anglo or even Japanese company to partner with Anglo-America.