Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Second interview was more about Mozambique and seems to be a concession he was wrong on his time prediction at the AGM. Lots of people did the math here and we know when he runs out of cash. Mozambique is not being announced in August, so he is clearly trying to get some interest in our sp around Nigeria by announcing what he can, to get the price as far up as he can before the next placing - which will be in September. So we have a month here - and all we can do is hope that the presentation requested for August actually doesn't get postponed. WE may be 2 billion shares out there before OPL 226 is putting some pressure on our sp to move. That just means the rise wouldn't be as great, but that is better than going to zero. I think we all have to accept a financing is coming before this things starts to rocket. GLTA
I said this before - at the AGM Art was clear that they are going to have to do another financing to cover general operating costs eventually. I am hoping the service provider and front end financing are announced in August. At the AGM, Art was suggesting he thought it would have been announced in July so he knew then he was close to what is coming out now. But we know he is always aggressive on his timelines.
He also said at the AGM that Mozambique would be announced in August - and in that podcast, he pointed out that the Exxon precedent contract is already done, and they are just using that to model the others. So we might just get Mozambique this month too. That will take money and time to develop. So a placing is coming. It will hurt. What I heard in the podcast is he is only going to raise enough to cover expenses. So it will probably be $2 to $3 million and so we are probably looking at 200 to 300 million more shares dilution right now. Buy us a year, by which point he will do another and at a much higher sp. I hope he gets more news flow so this next financing could be at a pence. But that financing is coming in September. He has a month to get our sp up to make it less dillutive than what it would currently be. GLTA
hope you are proven right rift.
Straight from the AGM - when asked about the timing of a new financing - Art was pretty clear that he will do it when it needs to be done - but the share price is less important to him than liquidity. He was not bothered that on the Canadian board, we are currently not trading at a high enough price to justify being there. Because he is more focused on taking the steps to get us producing so the stock price moves back to where it would be allowed on the TSX. Which is why I am holding. No guarantees - but I think the next financing is coming sooner than we all hope. I figure it has to be announced in early September now - so we have august to get the announcement of approvals, so we have a less dillutive placement.
Many posters will make positive or negative predictions - based on emotion. I read this for the gems where people post items based on reports, articles and releases related to projected drill dates and things that will give us a sense of when this is going to happen.
There is no question that shareholders have a right to be frustrated here with the burn rate, and lack of delivery. Art did a podcast a long time ago now and vastly overpredicted the timeline to get OPL 226 operating. He has since gone quiet - likely because he has realized that he was aggressive in his podcast predictions. There is going to be another financing before OPL 226 is announced. I reside in Canada, but I am looking to set up an account because I want to get a piece of the next financing. It will be dillutive. I am a long term holder and will stay around - I think that OPL 226 will eventually happen and patience will be rewarded. Yelling at each other here serves no purpose. If you are mad at COPL or Art, venting here serves no purpose. Telling other people here they are stupid to hold the stock serves no purpose. This is still a high risk invetment and the price tells us all that there are a lot of things that have to line up for this to succeed. If you don't think it will happen, move on . If you do, stay in. There are no guarantees here. The less risky this becomes, as we progress, the higher our price will go. Stay around if you think Art will eventually get this all in place, operating in Africa and having to navigate the hurdles and impediments that creates. GLTA
I posted about the AGM as I attended it. Art is going to do a placing, regardless of Nigeria. Nobody is talking about Mozambique but that is still there - Art thought it would be sorted by August - that was the date he used at the AGM. I don't expect that to happen - but the point is - they are not just working Nigeria, so we need to do a placement. It will be at these horrible prices. So when Nigeria comes good - the positive impact won't be as great on our SP. That is our situation. Get out if you don't think Nigeria is going to happen. Stay in if you think it is. We saw with Liberia how fast our price moved on news. Seems pretty simple. I am staying in and will try to find a way to participate in the next financing.
Good post here about your email with the investor relation person. At the AGM, the question was raised about the risk of a future financing. I think Art was pretty clear that they would do one when they needed to do one. He didn't seem at all concerned about SP on doing it - he said the key thing is liquidity and so he pointed to the fact this exchange was trading and liquid. It was pointed out we are not at a nickel which the TSE would want to maintain listing, he was not concerned about that. He pointed out that when they need money, they have never had a problem raising it. There is a placing coming, shares on your side of the pond. We just don't know when and at what price. I am just hoping we have an approval before that financing to help make the next financing less dillutive. Otherwise, we continue to wait. Meanwhile, Mozambique was suggested to be going ahead in August. However, as we have seen, no timeline promises here are ever met. GLTA
The prospect of this play is great. But we need a contract and government approval, before we can do anything. So this could take awhile for the country to give us the approval because they are making the first contract with Exxon and using that format for the rest of us. That could take a long time to iron out terms. Then we are in the queue. We have already seen how long the approval process is taking in Nigeria - about 2 years and counting. I hope we get news this month about Nigeria. So our next financing doesn't kill us with dilution. And maybe once we show Mozambique what we can do in Nigeria, it will help bolster their confidence to get us approved for Mozambique.
The government is up for election next year. If we don't get an approval committed this month, or anybody else with any other block, there is no way they are productive by Q4. If nobody is productive by Q4, the current government cannot say they are making a difference. So it occurs to me that the government has to scramble this month to give approvals, because it is going to take 90 days for the approved companies, at best, to get hopping. Or the positive income results will be claimed by whoever is elected next. I think the current government is smart and understands that. They need to approve asap and get results to point to in the next election. So while nobody can promise we get a release this month, the incentives are sure there for that to happen. GLTA LTH
we need an announcement before June 30 to have any impact on the next financing, which has to be done by October. that has nothing to do with when we get the final approval. The final approval will help us if we can announce it all this month. GLTA
Understand that I am a LTH so I hope this company succeeds. I will lay out what I can and if it doesn't answer a question you have, that question wasn't asked or wasn't answered. No promises made but we were told that we are at the last level of approval in Nigeria and when it is going to be announced it will all be announced with news of approvals, financing and contractors. They are quite far along but do not control time or process. We were told Karim is meeting numerous times at highest levels, which confirms what Rift posted here earlier. We have a change in the approval regime as of November of last year, so things take time. Was very clear they are not pushing things and will not act in any way that could get us into trouble in the future. It will happen when it happens. Company is aware of our assets and burn rate and they are working to get things accomplished ahead of that. He specifically didn't talk about another financing. Mozambique was given to us, taken away, we appealed and got it back. Has producing gas and infastructure so they think they can get it online very quick. Exxon is working on framing a form of contract with the government that will be used for all the other awarded concessions in Mozambique, so once the Exxon contract is done, the other concessions will get the same form of contract. That should be moving forward in this year. Again, no control over timing. Summary would be the company doesn't control when things will happen but they believe they are quite far along. So with Nigeria, it sounds like if we can get the final approval, the release will be about more than just that and will lay out the actual plan to get started. Just no idea of when yet. And with Mozambique, once the Exxon contract is ironed out, we will get ours and get it operating asap. No discussion of what things will cost, or financings. It was pointed out the original Nigeria plan was built around much lower oil prices so we have a much more attractive framework with higher oil prices. Here it sounded like the plan to produce may be more aggressive than what is presented in our website on developing OPL 226 because the margins are better with current oil prices. Very short meeting. GLTA
Rift, I appreciate your positive attitude here and informative posts about how connected Shoreline is in Nigeria. Is there any concern that Shoreline could simply cut out COPL to take this forward eventually? I have always been concerned that Shoreline was dealing with us because of our tie to Exxon in Liberia, and with that blowing up, we are not as attractive to Karim and Shoreline as we used to be. Like you, I believe OPL 226 will eventually be tapped, I am concerned that COPL may not be along for that ride by the time it happens.
As I said earlier, I will be at the meeting on Monday. The actual meeting is short, as they have preselected people to get through the general business. Including their entitlement to the compensation program they want us to vote on every year. The majority of the meetings are always the Q and A session where, like an earlier poster remarked, Art can make unofficial comments and representations about what is happening. Usually it is there that he is already talking about the next big play he is chasing. I am sure the blame for delay with OPL 226 will be cast entirely on the government and the company's refusal to get into providing incentives to move things along.
I am in Calgary, and I will be going to the AGM. I have been going to many of them, as I am a long time holder here. It seems that for many years, we keep paying to have this great staff on standby, doing further dilutions to fund admin expenses - and we don't get ahead. It is always as a result of a holdup that can be blamed on someone else. With Liberia, it was all about Exxon's A compliance team taking so long. Here it is now Nigerian government officials holding us up for a variety of reasons and explanations. The longer this goes without approval, we have to wonder what happens next. Like many of you, I am hopeful we can get the last approval, get producing, and get our price up . But we should all understand that if Art even gets there, he will have us committed into a bunch more projects in Africa so we will be tied up in something else. I will try to report AGM results on this board after the meeting.
Sorry, can someone please clarify what transaction didn't materialize. What frees up the $2 million? When I first read that I took that quite negatively, as I thought it meant that as we didn't have our approvals for OPL 226, our financing fell apart, and the $2 million was security we had to have to get the financing. So I thought that money being released was the white flag going up. So it would be a relief to hear it is something entirely different as I am way into this and way into the red.
We know how much they raised and with their disclosed cash burn, that runs out in June. You know that Art is not going to leave it to the last minute to do a raise. Expect an announcement of a placing in April and he will do it at whatever price he can. He doesn't care about dilution. AGM should be happening May or so. Has to be announced in advance. Timing of that will be interesting as well. If Hume would give us a sense of whether or not that is scheduled,that would be interesting to know.
I put this out there awhile ago and now everyone seems to be getting it. Our CEO told me directly, a few years ago, he is doing this while it is still fun. Told me that in a cell phone call with me on his way to a fun event while he was in the back of limo. That was when he would actually talk to us and respond. It is wrong to make fun of a guy's weight, and the point really is that Art sure seems to be having fun spending our money with nothing to show for it. Why does he need to fly so often to London and why does he have to spend so much while he is there? What is he doing to create shareholder value? What we are all saying is - we are all frustrated he is not accounting for spending the money. And now we have Nigeria just sitting there so they go get Mozambique so COPL look like there is something else if Nigeria doesn't play out - sort of like Nigeria was if Liberia didn't play out. We see Shoreline announcing a lot of other projects with other companies. That worries me - I am concerned that Shoreline was expecting COPL to have cash from Liberia to fund working together. Now that COPL doesn't have that money, I am worried that Shoreline has lost interest in working with COPL. I hope I am proven wrong. Or I am about to lose a ton of money.