So, everyone here has realized how inane this article is given that it doesn't account for the price of Fe and Ni plummeting once this much supply is introduced to the market.
But what is the actual value of something like this? Surely something comparable has happened in the past where a big reserve of some rare mineral has been found and monopolized, and its price didn't go to zero.
And has AstraZeneca claimed that this would cause them to fail on their commitments to the UK? Or are we presuming that because it benefits some other agenda?
I don't understand why there's a comparison with the UK vaccination program at play here. Your comment is precisely the type of incendiary fallacy that OP is accusing the BBC if.
EU is claiming that AZ is breaching the contract it had with them. Whether they are in the right or not, what does the UK's relationship with AZ have to do with it?
Because the market is not pricing this as a signal that the "sum of all future free cash flow" is in jeopardy.
Governments all over the world have implemented financial relief to these companies by promising to shoulder the cost of wages through the normal unemployment benefit system. Companies taking advantage of that during this extraordinary period doesn't say much about what their profitability will look like after the lockdowns are over.
In fact, in some cases this could be evidence of a flexible company that is able to scale down quickly and is more likely to survive this and future demand shocks.