Not only is CuDeco (nee Australian Mining Investment) not sitting on a copper deposit the size of Escondida, the resource is less than half the size suggested by the company before its shares was suspended.

CuDeco was relisted this morning after finally coming up with drilling reports that met the ASX’s belated application of standards. The result was the share price more than halving – trading at $3.15 when Crikey’s lunch time deadline hit.

As The Age is reporting, CuDeco’s statement to the exchange reduced its inferred resources to 25 million tonnes of ore, down from the previous 59 million.

There’s nothing wrong with sitting on a possible 25 million tonnes of copper ore, but when the company’s credibility has been taking a bashing, the downgrade of the resource does nothing to inspire confidence.

The saga has much further to run. One thing for sure is that all its future drilling result announcements will be read very closely by a large audience.