With only five days to go before the shareholders of BHP Billiton vote on the South32 demerger, commodity price and other circumstances have changed complexion of this plan, which spins off BHP Billiton’s aluminium, coal and manganese assets in South Africa. BHP Billiton’s board last month recommended firmly and unanimously that the demerger should go ahead. But since then, the investment atmosphere has turned bearish for BHP Billiton itself, with a Senate tax inquiry into its Singapore marketing hub not assisting. Some analysts have pushed the value of South32 down at $12-billion from an estimated previous $16-billion on falls in aluminium and nickel price projections over the medium term, prompting this mirage analogy for this Mining Weekly cartoon.