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Last year we had a bid from Apollo, and we all know what happened there.
Now we have an 'unsolicited, preliminary and conditional proposal' from Sidara @ 205 p which was quickly rejected. Very much a low-ball offer which they must have known would be rejected.
So, is Wood now in play? Do we get an increased offer from Sidara? Does todays RNS force the hand of ''another'' to make a bid? Now that would be interesting, and it's not impossible. A similar situation happened with RPS a few years back - laughed all the way to the bank on that one.
Could be a very interesting few weeks ahead.
While the RNS was welcome, the grades of ore leave little of get excited about.
A copper grade of 0.49% is roughly 11 lbs of copper per ton of ore. At the current price of $4.60 a lb that's $50 a ton, if costs $20 a ton to process, we make a profit. if it costs $50 a ton to process - no profit.
The gold concentration of 0.38 g/ton is not worth getting excited about. At that % it would require 88 tons of ore to extract 1 troy oz or 31 grams of gold. It's OK as an extra if there is not much additional processing required, but it's not really economic on it's own.
The silver concentration is better but it still takes 2 tons of ore to 1 oz of silver, at $27 an oz.
At todays prices one ton of ore would yield;
$50 of copper
$13 of silver
$25 of gold
And of course it's not uniformly distributed.
It's probably enough to make it viable, just, but it's not going to make us mega rich, which is why the SP stubbled today.
We have a market cap of ~ £350m and the latest P/E is - 6.25 until we get a positive P/E then I think we are unlikely to see an significant rise in the SP.
Much of the potential is still in the future and I fear many people were caught up in the bubble of late 20 and early 21 when anything hydrogen went nuts , but we are slowly working past that now.
Re Spuders, toltrisk, et al
Thanks for the link to the Nottingham article, they have a great reputation for chemistry at that Uni.
There is a company in Canada called GH Power and on their website they say they have a working prototype which takes aluminium and generates hydrogen using a proprietary catalyst. But of course they don't say how as it's a trade secret and a private company (at the moment).
I've been keen on hydrogen for a very long time and first bought CWR when it was 6p a share, before the 10:1 consolidation. Sold half my stake at the end of 2020 but kept the other half as I believe there is a bright future for hydrogen IF it can be produced without adding to greenhouse gases. Most hydrogen that's made today is what we now call ''grey hydrogen'' made by the high temperature steam reformation process, where methane (CH4) is reacted with steam (H20) to produce hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Today the hydrogen is easily captured and most of the carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere.
Any of the myriad of evolving technologies that help to produce hydrogen in a way that does not add to green house gas emissions is a BIG plus in my book. The reason I really like Ceres is that the technology works in both directions, a fuel cell that generate electricity and an electrolyser that can generate hydrogen - what's not to like.
I'm also in PHE - for my sins - but again I like the technology (maybe more than the management) and IF they get that off the ground it will turn low level unrecyclable plastic waste into hydrogen and/or electricity with a very low carbon foot print.
Short tarcker has just updated and shows no reduction in the 10.09% short position. None of them took the money and ran yesterday.
Looks like the shorters are betting on either a massive dilution via D4E or bankruptcy.
I got out of PFC on Monday and will stay in touch, but the prospect of a massive dilution is very real, I think.
Good luck to everyone - it's been emotional.
Well, no RNS on EoY numbers this morning. IF they are going be released in April, there are just two more days left.
What's the betting??
- that we'll get a brief and ambiguous RNS on the 30th April saying they are delayed, or
- we get an RNS saying that it was a bad year (which we all know, just not how bad yet) and here is a plan with asset sales, D4E, etc....
I'm included to think they will be delayed, but I'd love to be proved wrong.
- Talies
I've been prepared to give our current BoD the benefit of the doubt, they are between 'a rock and a hard place' - mainly of their own making, but after last Fridays reckless RNS I no long have faith in the BoD and would fully support a vote of no confidence. You can count on my 0.02% of the shares :)
Re Dave
That makes two of us. I can see no obvious reason for the release of the RNS last Friday - the SP was not under relentless pressure like it was back in early Dec 23 when they eventually released an RNS. And, as has been said by others on here and in the media, there was nothing new in the most recent RNS.
So, why release it. I can see only two reasons.
- Total and utter incompetence from the BOD & senior management - in that they did not know it would have a big negative impact on the share price. Now they may not be 'master minds' but I seriously doubt that they are that incompetent.
- Which leaves only one conclusion. It was released with the full understanding of the effect that it would have and was designed to suppress the share price. Unfortunately I have no idea why they would want to depress the SP and neither does anyone else - which is why the SP is down by 1/3rd since the RNS - uncertainly breeds fear and people get out of the stock.
All I know is that It makes an absolute joke of "A key aim of this review is to protect the interests of Petrofac’s shareholders, creditors and employees while the Group continues its focus on safe and effective delivery for its clients."
In the last two days our CEO Ken Gilmartin has purchased 437,178 shares at a total cost of £557k, not including over 8000 shares purchased in Jan & Mar - looks like a solid vote of confidence and an expectation of better things in the future - and he should know.
It's just 0.5% additional shares, only a very minor dilution or 1/200th if you like fractions - can't see that it will have any material effect on the current SP.
Indeed:
15,392,202 is just over 3% of the shares
8,674,150 is approximately 1.6615% of the shares
My guess is that we'll see a significant reduction in the short position of both Helikon & Astairs on Monday evening - as the late trades will not make it to tomorrows short data - due to the days delay.
We are not at 25p yet - Mac - but we are well on our way and the continued de-leveraging of debt is a sound business plan which will have a positive impact on the SP.
And, once the debt is substantially reduced, maybe by the end of 2025 - then what are they to do with all that spare cash? Did I hear someone say dividend??