"Note that my quesion is not adversarial."

Well I certainly did not take it that way at all, and I appreciate your trying to engender some tidbits of info from the company. Perhaps we will learn something from a reply.

I'm just wondering why you would think that any mining company would ever say that expressions of interest in any prospective deal are dead in the water, or now often it is in your opinion that a prospective partner walks away saying out loud, "We are no longer interested."