Member Info for BradSmith

There are a few stuffed shirts on here that could use it :O)

TLOU have always suggested 10MW as their starting point. This makes perfect sense to me for once.
They could supply the whole lot from the first site and any teething troubles exposed in that process could be addressed when designing the second site.
On the assumption that the first 10Mw would be profitable, the second phase could be partially funded from those profits which would have kept the share issue down for all our benefits.

As it is they were almost forced into a share issue at a silly price of 5.75p, scuppering those plans!

It is not a disaster and we are now many months if not years ahead full production in Plan A and it won't be a surprise if they produce two facilities that work very well from day 1. Our leader seems well qualified to do that.

It looks possible we won't be receiving dividends as early as Plan A would produce, but once Plan B is profitable the dividends are going to be much higher.

If you are young your pension supplements look fine - for the oldies we have the same question ... will we live long enjoy to enjoy the fruits? And will we have teeth to avoid sucking those fruits?

Botswana is in a difficult position if it has Hobson's Choice on one energy provider - it needs some leverage to keep tenders at a sensible price or to maybe give them an idea of an acceptable price at all?

Sekaname is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kalahari Energy which is based in the British Virgin Islands.

Recommend a review of Tidds wordpress site in Tom's link ..... the Orapa stuff and much much more is concisely detailed in there

Think it must be rubbish - found an older article which would mean Kalahari could do it all for itself and the Govt need not be involved?

++++

Issue 205
18 March 2011

Coalbed methane (CBM) player Kalahari Energy has started up a 90MW dual-fuel power plant in Orapa. The plant will initially run on diesel until gas supply can be put in place.

Have been searching for the article I read on Sekaname and came across a headline in the African Energy Newsletter ....... it is 18 months old but took me by surprise ..... my understanding is TLOU have changed the intended direction on the wells because of the positioning of pylons .... what pylons are capable of moving gas?

+++++

Issue 339
02 February 2017

A detailed request for proposals (RfP) has been issued to two bidders – Tlou Energy and Kalahari Sustainable Energy subsidiary Sekaname – selected by the government to develop a coalbed methane project of up to 100MW. Bids are due from the two companies by 12 July. The scheme is intended to establish pilot projects that will ultimately lead to establishing a gas supply for the 90MW Orapa peaking power plant, owned by the Botswana Power Corporation. Few details are yet known as the RfP requires confidentiality from the bidders.

Angus, we are more interested in using the gas for powering electricity generators and selling the electricity.

Selling gas is a potential sideline if the price is right but is not the priority.

We are crashing on with the option of selling electricity to the Southern African grid if Botswana drag their heels too long. As soon as we get remotely near production I am pretty certain Botswana will want that energy for themselves rather than import the very expensive power as they are already!

Our directors have been very proactive so it looks like we have not lost much time on the govt's procrastination.

Sekaname wanted an advanced order before starting anything. Without their input I suspect the tender would not have been for up to 100MW (10 times what we intended to produce for starters, and why there was a placement for money to start a second site to hep facilitate more power) and the agreement would have been easier?

If all were truly worried how on earth was the latest $8M Placement successful?

We are in a chicken and egg position - Botswana has two companies who are not ready to supply yet - and those companies are considering deals with a govt that is not ready either.

But we are going forward - cannot see if Sekaname are but they did make noises that they won't start work until they have a huge order which cannot be helping.

JTD short of a military coup I am not sure what you expect?

If the Botswana want to go at an African pace what on earth can TLOU do? Except have contingency plans which they clearly do.

GG did not say 2 to 4 weeks with any sort of certainty and he could hardly say what he might have been thinking about the ministers he had spoken with.

Given the Teresa May's method of giving out news about Brexit 'dreams' very frequently or TLOU's approach of saying nothing when there is nothing to say - both trying to overcome non-responsive and inflexible govt bodies - I think I'll accept the latter.

They have told us that work is progressing at Lesedi and they have contingency plans to deal directly with energy distributors across Southern Africa rather than depend on Botswana to improve over an indefinite timescale - do they really need to keep repeating that?

If Botswana get their finger out I am sure there will be delight all round because dealing with one African body must be better, especially when you are based in that country?

The same website also published today ..... (sounds like a malaise has set in) ....

Innovation, business sophistication still low in Botswana

Publishing Date : 19 July, 2018

Author : NAMETSO FRANCE

Botswana has continued to wobble in attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) despite its international good ratings and favourable foreign exchange control, taxation and competition policies.

Compared to countries such as Rwanda and Mauritius Botswana`s investment climate has not been doing well especially investments towards infrastructure development and capital investments, Moatlhodi Sebabole, an economist with First National Bank Botswana highlighted.

Sebabole revealed to BusinessPost that Botswana has regressed in comparison to peers like Seychelles Rwanda and Mauritius. Indicating that despite good macros, the doing business in Botswana environment remains relatively tighter on aspects of registration; work permits; access to utilities; tax submissions, among others. He elucidated that this has proven to be a deterrent for some prospective investments.

Don't agree (yet) Sonic - it is an article that needed to be published on here.
Further negatives will be clear if the poster is whom you suspect but so far so good.

Looks like he had a post deleted as only 2 of 3 are available .... did you see the third one perhaps?

I now have much sympathy for GG who is clearly in a very complex position dealing with the Botswanans.
It really looks like there is total incompetence within the Govt due to lack of knowledge about CBM?
It makes me wonder if the PM who retired was in the same boat so he left it for the next guy, a bit Cameronesque?

I had hoped they only had to remove the requirement that the tenders had to be from tried and tested companies with current experience of supply Botswana with energy ..... it is clearly more than that and deciding on how much energy is required in the 10Mw - 100Mw range.

Africa looks to be a minefield without minefields ..... I am suffering badly from TLOU and AVN in that continent, very stressful!

Puddin you have won a proverbial Mars bar.
I'd have been happy to just win 1 drink :O)

Am invested here and also put my EVRH money in here when I withdrew it.

Puddin have you looked at TLOU message board lately?

I was invested here but never really understood what I was invested in so got out when I had the chance to get my money back.

So sad tracker, I wish Williams had advertised himself along the lines of Man and A VAN TI to give us a better idea of what we were getting into. £7 to 5p is one crazy drop by anyone's standards.

Found this article which discusses one or two issues....

Potassium and Balanced Crop Nutrition

Adequate supplies of other plant nutrients are required to obtain maximum responses to potassium fertilizer; however, there are several unique relations between potassium and other nutrients.

High-potassium fertilization can decrease the availability of magnesium to the plant, and may result in magnesium deficiency of crops grown on soils that are already low in magnesium. This problem is often encountered with crops grown on sandy soils, particularly in the coastal plain soils of the southern United States. Conversely, crops grown on soils high in magnesium can suffer potassium deficiency, especially if the soils are high phosphorus and low in potassium. This problem is especially severe in the soils of the Mississippi River flood plain.

Leaching of potassium in acidic, sandy soils may be reduced by liming the soil to a pH of 6.2 to 6.5; however, applications of high rates of limestone to a soil low in potassium may induce potassium deficiency of crops growing on those soils. This problem occurs more on soils with predominantly 2:1 type clays (such as montmorillonite clays) rather than the 1:1 type (such as kaolinitic clays).

Verde - you cannot refer to Potash in the way you have.

There is Muriate of Potash and Sulphate of Potash (I don't like the American spelling) for a start.

The price of 'potash' used to be $50 per tonne (cost more to lift it out of the ground at our sites), but then it rose to over $800 per tonne when Chris Fraser and Co took an active interest.

Sulphate has always been more expensive to buy than Muriate. It had to be because adding Sulphuric Acid etc was an expensive and toxic process! That was Boulby's main business in the days they denied there was a place in the market for polysuphate. They have U-turned on that philosophy since we got planning permission and it became clear there is a huge market for it.

The density of Potassium is also a red herring because it is the rate that minerals release the potassium into the soil that matters for many crops.

Understood Tom, did not reply in case the PC brigade reported me/us for off topic - so sad this country nowadays.
If I sent several per day over an extended period I'd understand it but the World cup is only every 4 years and is now over. Shame I decided to put it into a database rather than Excel which would have been so much easier/quicker. I'd intended to invite several boards to join at £1 each if I finished in time. The current list was test data exclusive to Tlou (which gets far fewer posts than my other boards) but was expected to be mildly interesting.

Cheers.