Member Info for extrader

And from Wiki (note link to Turkish ruling party):

.."Albayrak Group is a Turkish multinational conglomerate company based in Istanbul, Turkey. For the first three decades it was a construction company, but since 1982 it has expanded into other sectors, including transport and logistics, waste management, and media. It acquired the Yeni Şafak newspaper in 1997.

The group has been contracted by the government multiple times because of its close ties with AK Parti. It is also active internationally and has done construction of Lahore Metro Bus and is currently managing Mogadishu Port in Somalia and Conakry port in Guinea..."

Great find !

From the same link

.."Strategic Outlook

Albayrak Group sees this project as a starting point in the Republic of Congo and is gearing up to implement different projects in the future. One prominent project on the horizon is the rehabilitation of the railway between Pointe Noire and Brazzaville. If realized, this project will transform the Pointe Noire – Brazzaville route into a robust logistics corridor in the region..."

Apart from anything else, it would make PN a high quality logistics route for export of goods/minerals from DRC...there's nothing like eating someone else's lunch...;->

..and maybe here (C-B) as well...

From today's Depeches (report of Council of Ministers meeting 18 January) :

.."Communications

The Council of Ministers was then presented with two papers. The first paper, presented by Mr. Pierre, Minister of State, Minister of Mining Industries and Geology, related to the mission to Beijing (China) from December 27 to 29, 2023, as part of the project to build a rail link between Congo and Cameroon.

The construction of this infrastructure will make it possible to transport iron ore from the Badondo, Avima and Nabeba deposits to the port of Kribi in Cameroon.

The work will be carried out in two phases, the first towards Cameroon and the second consisting of the construction of a railroad from the Sangha to the port of Pointe-Noire, with the construction of a mineral port.

The total cost of the private investment expected from the companies involved is 4 billion US dollars.

The Council of Ministers welcomed this prospect and congratulated their Excellencies, Messrs Paul Biya, President of the Republic of Cameroon, and Denis Sassou N'Guesso, President of the Republic of Congo, for this spectacular illustration of the policy of cooperation between our two countries, a symbol of sub-regional integration..."

Thoughts : the Minister of Communications isn't communicating very clearly :

- if export is via Kribi, Cameroon, Congo involvement should be a rail-link up-country (Sangha) to the Cameroon border and onwards....

- what's the deal with rail in opposite direction, to PN and a 'mineral port' there? Are 2 x projects conflated?

- US$ 4 billion *seems a lorra, lorra money for the Chinese private sector (esp. as mine title is being litigated).

* ZIOC infrastructure will be a snip, by comparison.

Ho hum.

.."Argentina: On Friday, there were media reports that the government was close to securing the support of the three other parties in its incipient Congressional alliance to approve the Omnibus Law. According to Clarín, the government is supposedly pledging to lower duration of the delegation of emergency powers, reverse the 15% increase for export tax for regional economies, and modify the article of the retirement reform. Other newspapers speculate that YPF will be out of the privatisation list and that political reforms in the Omnibus bill will be postponed.

The Argentine government seems to be focusing on sweeping deregulation of the economy to undo decades of red tape, betting on the ability to implement further fiscal measures while attracting investments to the country. The good news for the Government is that, after appointing members from other parties – notably Macri’s Juntos por el Cambio – to its cabinet, Milei seems to understand the importance of negotiating its sweeping changes in Congress, increasing the likelihood of its reform programme to be successful.

The negotiation over the Omnibus bill may help the Emergency Decree with more than 300 rules which was issued on 20 December and is valid since the end of 2023 (except the labour chapter, which was successfully challenged in court).

The decree may still be voted down if both Congress and the Senate repeal it by the end of the month or if the Supreme Court rules it unconstitutional.

In economic news, the trade balance moved to a USD 1.0bn surplus in December after a USD 0.6bn deficit in November, as exports rose by USD 0.4bn to USD 5.3bn and imports declined by 1.2bn to USD 4.3bn."

'Steady as she goes'.

GLA

See p 13 of last presentation :

- ZIOC alumina @ Stage 2 (0.4%) is 1/3rd of Vale's IOCJ 1.4%, 1/6th of Pilbara/Newam 2.3-2.4%...

- ZIOC silica @ 3.0% above Vale's IOCJ (1.4%), but below Pilbara/Newman 3.7-4.3%...

-ZIOC phosphorus @ 0.04% less than half Vale's, Pilbara/Newman's 0.08 > 0.1%...

AFAICS

reiterates the case for zioc :

.."dr quality

the direct reduction route is more sensitive to iron ore quality and market-based iron ore pellet supply will be crucial, according to the international iron metallics association.

the iima forecasts a gap in 2033 of around 34 million mt in dr-grade iron ore pellets factoring in demand growth from global dri plants, in a november presentation. even with some lower quality blast furnace pellets being used for dri, the iima estimates a remaining gap of 18 million mt—equivalent to around 12 million mt/year of dri capacity or 5 dri modules short of feed.

dri plants cannot use **** to remove impurities and control iron quality, as well as production rates. dri plants need pellets with low alumina and silica to optimize dri quality, to limit effects on energy consumption and quality in downstream steelmaking processes...."

atb

Manara Minerals' Bob Wilt may be wanting to develop an in-house (future offtake) trading capability, it looks as though the process has been jump-started :

https://www.mining.com/web/saudi-arabia-flags-commodity-trading-ambitions-with-dme-stake/

.."The owner of Saudi Arabia’s stock market has acquired a 32.6% stake in the Dubai Mercantile Exchange as it seeks to diversify its revenue and gain access to oil, metals and agricultural trading.

Saudi Tadawul Group bought the holding in the DME, as the Dubai exchange is known, for 107 million riyals ($28.5 million), according to a statement on Thursday, making it the joint largest shareholder along with US-based CME Group...."

CME Group operates financial derivatives exchanges including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Chicago Board of Trade, New York Mercantile Exchange, and The Commodity Exchange. The company also owns 27% of S&P Dow Jones Indices. It is the world's largest operator of financial derivatives exchanges. Its exchanges are platforms for trading in agricultural products, currencies, energy, interest rates, metals, futures contracts, options, stock indexes, and cryptocurrencies futures.

'Another brick in the wall..'

And pursuing its own (future) offtake trading ambitions, it would seem..

https://www.mining.com/web/saudi-arabia-flags-commodity-trading-ambitions-with-dme-stake/

Little Den's tweet today :

Not until late 2024....and C-B wants to Co-Chair....

.."In view of the holding, this year, of the next edition of the Forum on Sino-African Cooperation ( #FOCAC ), I received, on January 19, the Ambassador of #Chine to #Congo with whom I had fruitful discussions around this important multilateral meeting. On this occasion, I confirmed Congo's desire to co-chair this forum which promotes the creation of synergies between China and African countries.

Subsequently, we focused our exchanges on the preparations for the next joint commission #coopération between China and Congo, which will be an opportunity to take an exhaustive assessment of our bilateral cooperation and identify new opportunities to strengthen our partnership which has continued unhindered for around fifty years.

Indeed, this year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and our country. On the sidelines of this celebration, a series of activities will be organized to mark these six decades of bilateral relations. It is also planned that His Excellency the President of the Republic of Congo will make a working visit to China; a subject which was also on the menu of discussions with Ambassador Li Yan..."

Hi Livingstone20,

FWLIW, I'm inclined to your interpretation, as you explained in more detail elsewhere (which I rec'd)

.."I’m hoping I’m not just seeing what I want to see but my potential narrative on that is different. Perhaps the auction agreed a share price way back, they have ‘nickel and dimed’ a few extra centavos in final negotiations, or as it has dragged on, as an exiting shareholder they want their income share to the date they exit and they have settled on this strange amount. It just otherwise seems very odd to suddenly introduce a quarterly dividend, in the midst of a sale process with no mention of a new dividend policy. The only party who benefits from a quarterly dividend who couldn’t wait for the regular annual dividend is the majority exiting Wilson shareholder..."

The last line was quite persuasive for me.

We'll find out soon enough!

ATB

Some further related comment from MEED

https://www.meed.com/trkiyes-tosyali-plans-5bn-saudi-steel-plant

.."Government officials in Riyadh have pushed to transition to an economy less reliant on fossil fuels. For instance, in October 2023, Saudi Arabia launched the Neom Investment Fund. The fund serves as the strategic investment arm of Neom, which is a proposed 26,500sqkm new urban area planned by the kingdom to serve as a financial and global trade hub in the country.

Steelmaking plays a major role in that transition, supporting crucial industries such as Saudi Arabia’s infrastructure and construction sectors. To put that into perspective, the planned city of Neom requires around 600km of large-diameter carbon steel pipe to facilitate water transmission.

“Steel is the driving force behind the advancement of the economic development of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” according to a statement on Saudi Arabia’s National Committee for Steel Industry. “Steel lies at the heart of progress, from medical instruments to solar power, from high-tech forging to our transportation network. It is the platform of our future.”

GLA

Unfortunately for ZIOC, it looks as though a lot of Bahrain Steel's feedstock requirement is already covered , by a 20 year supply deal with AngloAmerican, signed in 2019 :

From the same link https://www.bahrainsteel.com.bh/#!/media

Bahrain Steel Signs 20-Year Pellet Feed Agreement with Anglo American

- Supporting Enhanced Production Capacity and Sustained Growth

- Contract valued at approximately USD 15 billion over deal lifetime

Bahrain, 29th April 2019 – Bahrain

Steel BSC (The Company) today announced that it has signed a 20-year agreement with Anglo American Marketing Limited (Anglo American) for the supply of pellet feed for its pelletising plants located in Hidd in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The contract, which is valued at approximately USD 15 billion over its duration and will reach a total of 8 million wet metric tons a year, provides Bahrain Steel with approximately 60% of its expected needs for pellet feed at its annual rated capacity of 12 million tons of finished pellets, making the contract a significant milestone in its strategy to maintain full production capacity and the uninterrupted delivery of high quality iron ore pellets to steel producers it supplies around the world.

Signed in London, where Anglo American is headquartered, the agreement provides for iron ore grade to be supplied at a minimum 67% Fe and 2% or less total gangue. Deliveries under the contract have already started, sourced exclusively from Anglo American’s Minas-Rio mine in Brazil.

Bahrain Steel’s pellets are used for steelmaking using either the Direct Reduced/Electric Arc Furnace or the Blast Furnace/ Basic Oxygen Furnace route. The Company’s growth is being driven by its reputation as a reliable supplier of consistent quality Direct Reduction (DR) grade iron ore pellets and currently it has an estimated 26% share of the iron ore pellet market in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, where demand is put at approximately 22 million tons ....."

Presumably, GCC demand will be a lot higher now...and going forward ;->

GLA

And, on further reading around (some pretty grubby stuff), there's this snippet :

.."Asperbras also owned private jets, 2 Bombardiers , a Challenger 605 and a Global Express 6000. They were used in the Portuguese corruption investigation 'Rota do Atlantico' , the 'Atlantic Route' being a reference to their round-trip flights between Brazil, Portugal (Cascais) and Congo'...

The mysterious jet PP-FCC that was the subject of some speculation as to possible VALE ownership a while back is also a Bombardier Global 6000 Type GLEX, its flight history includes flts inland from Sao Paolo to Penapolis, home town of Asperbras founders, the Colnaghi family.

So, mystery solved, I would venture.

Interesting, but probably irrelevant.....

GLA

PS On further reading, this 30Bn loan is part of a facility first approved in 2013, for II5 Bn CFA for construction of 12 general hospitals, one in each province of C-B. A workshop for the first was said to be 90% complete on a site visit in 2016.....

.."It's worth noting that the project to build construction of general hospitals in the twelve departments of the Congo was launched [in 2013]. This project is part of the national health policy 2018- 2030, entitled Programme

santé pour tous du Congo. The first sample of of these general hospitals was visited by the Head of State in Kinkala, capital of the Pool department, in February 2016. This site, whose level of execution work is nearing completion 90%, is built on a five-hectare site.

According to the technical specifications, it comprises a 12,000 m2 hospital building with a hospitalization capacity of 200 beds and a conference hall with 146 seats. ..."

Let's hope any ZIOC consortium is made of sterner stuff.

...and depeches 19 Jan carries a story re Central African Development Bank granting a 30 Bn CFA loan (($48 M approx), for construction of 2 x hospitals in Sibiti and Ouesso, by a company called Asperbras, which I looked up as possibly Brazilian...

Which it is, a diversified manufacturing co https://asperbras.com/en/

It turns out, however, that a few years back, Asperbras was implicated in a corruption/money-laundering case involving Big Den, Gilbert Ondongo (then Min of Finance) and a Euro 6.9m villa in Cascais, Portugal.

See https://expresso.pt/sociedade/2016-11-23-Caso-Jose-Veiga.-Multimilionario-brasileiro-veio-a-Portugal-de-proposito-para-ser-constituido-arguido

Seems that 'there is life after death'...

Ho hum.

Depeches carries a 16 Jan story about Petromal, part of National Holding Group, looking to invest in C-B hydrocarbons

https://www.nh.ae/our-businesses/petromal/

.."Based in Abu Dhabi and the oil and gas branch of the National Holding Group, Petromal is active in upstream and downstream oil and gas, while developing through direct investment or strategic public-private partnerships. The Petromal team, together with the heads of finance and treasury and business development managers from

ADNOC, came to Congo to explore potential opportunities for collaboration in the hydrocarbons sector..."

The reported ADNOC involvement suggests a semi-governmental role.

It already has a J/V with Petronor and, through them, with Perenco, an O + G explo company with a colourful past

https://www.perenco.com/our-group

Interesting FT article today, arguing that China's renewables drive will eventually lead to its being in a position to argue FOR climate-friendly policies, instead of dragging its feet eg on the coal power station front.

Relevant to ZIOC is this bit...

.." the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. (CBAM)... is making Chinese producers of the affected sectors work hard to reduce their carbon footprint so as not to be locked out of European markets. Here are two important observations about that. The huge resources Beijing has sunk into green tech should make it a lot easier for its companies to adapt to policies such as CBAM.

Meanwhile, on the EU side, the fact that the policy works — both in protecting green EU industry from being undercut by dirty competitors and in encouraging decarbonisation efforts elsewhere — will make it easier to expand CBAM to downstream products.

The political and economic logic for this to happen is after all undeniable: it doesn’t do to protect green but expensive steelmaking while ignoring that carmakers, say, still face being undercut by producers using cheap and dirty steel..."

Even an ill wind powers turbines...

GLA

Guys,

The Piraeus offer is highly conditional and very short on substance.

The facilities discussed are :

(1) Export factoring = discount of receivables ie any payment risk on buyer, AFTER HELD has jumped hoops on performance (production, quality etc);

(2) APG's in respect of grants ALREADY applied for ie self-liquidating discount of (short term?) receivables ie primary payment risk on grantor, not HELD (other than secondary recourse);

(3) unquantified working capital for plant expansion (presumably above that plant already (?) commissioned - isn't that enough for a while?)

No detail re amounts of ££ involved, facility tenor, facility pricing or security terms.

It also requires a detailed reworking/updating of HELD's business plan (the original IPO version presumably now superseded by the recently acknowledged 'pivot' in business model), to be submitted by an independent third party consultant acceptable to Piraeus. Apart from the additional cost, that's not exactly a vote of confidence in HELD management, is it?

Nor does it seem likely to be a quick process, IMO.

A step forward, to be sure, but not quite as it's been bigged up to be, AFAICS.

GLA

I've emailed AT asking for clarification as to whether Gary attended FMF and who (apart from himself) will be attending the PIF Feb event.

It may just be a coincidence, but our EPC Partner Perth signed a month ago a 12mtpa beneficiation plant contract with an un-named Brazilian company..

http://www.psei.com.cn/news/219.html

Perth has been awarded a current contract for a 12 million mt/year iron ore roll drying option in Brazil

Release time:2023-12-13 16:59:33 Popularity: 108

Recently, Perth was awarded the current contract for a 12 million tonnes/year iron ore roller drying option in Brazil.

A case of 'every little fits' ?

ATB