RE: 50/5026 Jun 2023 12:49
I rarely post but agree with T1 on the chaff here.
I am an Engineer with many years of negotiating international contracts, so am familiar with the process here and T1’s question is the crux of the matter. Country to country the process, varies considerably and I have never dealt with Morocco. In all probability however, the ESIA permit itself could be a concise document but almost inevitably will refer to a whole series of other documents, amongst them, a Commercial Agreement and I suspect this is the ‘fine detail’ that has prolonged negotiations.
In the two extremes, does the local Authority say to EML here is a pipeline terminated at your mine with fully processed waste water ready for you to use or do they say, we have plenty of waste water, come build a processing facility and pipeline to get it to your mine? Most usually, the commercial dividing line will be somewhere in between the extremes but worth noting that the Safi wastewater treatment plant requires an investment of around 50 million Euro. This is financed by OCP, so I would think that would sway the Khemisset Authorities to expect similar from EML.
I can say without doubt that the final rubber stamps that are always the most difficult for negotiating Engineers to get are the ones from Accountants.