This week Botswana’s emerging as well as existing copper and base metals firms along with government are meeting in Maun to discuss the road ahead for beneficiation in the country. Two things are pretty clear. The copper companies will want nothing to do with the country’s desire to beneficiate its base metals and, at least for the moment, the iron ore and coal miners will. It is rare that a simple answer explains such a difference but to bend slightly President Clinton’s very successful election campaign slogan against George Bush the Elder in 1992- ‘it’s the price –stupid’.