Copper was first discovered in 1870 in a town called Cobar. BPH resources currently own an unused copper mine in Cobar that was shut down four years ago due to the depressed price of copper. However, due to the recent resources boom, BPH are considering re-opening the mine.

Company management forecast that it would cost $100,000 to re-open the mine and they would extract 100,000 pounds of copper per year for three years if the mine was re-opened. After that time the deposit will be exhausted.  The current copper price is $4 per pound and it costs $3.60 per pound to extract. Each year the price is equally likely to rise or fall by $0.50 from its level at the start of the year. Assuming a discount rate of 10% should BPH open the mine now or should they wait one year to see if the price of copper rises?

求助各位前辈，对这道题应该按照什么思路做？

In my opinion, maybe it's a way to think from the perspective of option: if open now, Company forcast the cashflow and NPV based on the price of $4; if wait for one year, then Company get a one-year option, which means either open or not open one year later, based on the price then.

这道题目感觉就是一个概率题目吧，因为(4.0+0.5)/4 > 10% 所以如果在价格上涨的情况下再开copper mine肯定是比现在收益多一些。

但是问题是这个也只有0.5的概率发生。题目没有说清楚是否在价格下跌的情况下认为是潜在的损失。

楼主可否明示一下答案的分析？

既然折现率已经给定了 就好做了 直接把未来现金流折现,求出净现值 就可以决定了

其实价格的不确定性已经在给定折现率里体现了