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And for some perspective, here's Kipling's take (Arithmetic on the Frontier) - still relevant !

A GREAT and glorious thing it is
To learn, for seven years or so,
The Lord knows what of that and this,
Ere reckoned fit to face the foe -
The flying bullet down the Pass,
That whistles clear: "All flesh is grass."

Three hundred pounds per annum spent
On making brain and body meeter
For all the murderous intent
Comprised in "villainous saltpetre".
And after?- Ask the Yusufzaies
What comes of all our 'ologies.

A scrimmage in a Border Station-
A canter down some dark defile
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail.
The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

No proposition Euclid wrote
No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
Or ward the tulwar's downward blow.
Strike hard who cares - shoot straight who can
The odds are on the cheaper man.

One sword-knot stolen from the camp
Will pay for all the school expenses
Of any Kurrum Valley scamp
Who knows no word of moods and tenses,
But, being blessed with perfect sight,
Picks off our messmates left and right.

With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem.
The troopships bring us one by one,
At vast expense of time and steam,
To slay Afridis where they run.
The "captives of our bow and spear"
Are cheap, alas! as we are dear.

ATB

Hi all,

It's an ill wind, etc... The latest Houthi drone attacks on Eastern Province oil facilities (close to the Arabian /Persian Gulf shoreline) can only heighten Saudi interest in knowing exactly who's in their territorial waters, especially on the smaller vessels that ply the extensive coast-line.
All made all the more complicated - for me as a UK national - by HMG complicity in supporting technically/militarily the attacks on Yemen that likely prompted this response.

ATB

Hi Manwithplan,

Yes. It's claimed that Guyana drinks more (of its own) rum than Barbados produces...
I see a good Port Morant in my future....

"Rum is not a vice - it's a way to survive" . Hemingway.

ATB

Hi atg,

Thanks for this. Just to nuance :
- the site was a showcase for the recent conference, to show that C-B is doing things under its own steam;
- the industrial park has been using diesel as power source up to now;
- 70% of the work to connect to hydro has been completed;
- the park is mainly dedicated to import substitution (building materials), there's a plan to assemble tractors from kits;
- park will hopefully benefit from construction /upgrade of the rail links between Brazzaville and Kinshasa.

Hardly earth-shattering, but a step/steps in the right (diversification) direction...

ATB

Hi reverandy,

Thanks for arranging this !
57p for me pls, Loros Hospice.

O/T (but maybe not) : the camino certainly helps put things into perspective.
Ultreia et suseia !
ATB

Hi Sooty,

Thanks for finding - and posting - the article incl link !
Key thing is to get confirmation that the SEZ (as NOW envisaged) includes 'our' port, or at least A port.... and how long before the bits useful/relevant for us are likely to be available.

It'll be interesting, meanwhile, to see how MM and co square the 'actualite' with their recent offerings, the latest only a few hours ago :

.."An RNS might take a day or two allowing people to return to their offices first. But Yes! - all the indicators out of Congo strongly point to advances on key aspects for #Zanaga development:
Hydro Power
Investment in Rail
SEZ agreement and COIDIC funding...."

So, being generous, maybe 0.5 out of 3.

Oops !
ATB

Hi all,

Seems as though much ado about relatively little...

Only 3 out of the 7 agreements concluded relate to C-B - and they're 'draft' agreements only.

The 1 of interest to us is Pointe Noire SEZ, we'll have to see if it includes the much-vaunted mineral port.

The other 2 are : support for small/medium -size businesses (which in the local context is unlikely to include Zanaga) and ECO oil, which seems to be about environmentally friendly palm oil (shome mishtake, shurely).

From our point of view, a lot hinges on the detail that the PN SEZ 'draft' agreement presumably contains.

There's nothing about either Sounda dam (important as a potential power solution) or refurbishment of the CFCO rail link (transport solution), despite the twitterthon over the last few days.

HTH and ATB

Hi all,

Just by way of a 'reality check' : one of the key projects on C-B's wishlist is the Sounda dam, which the World Bank (co-host of the current conference) has been actively supporting for the last 30 years or so.

If you go to the World Bank MENA (Middle EastNorth Africa ) twitter feed, you'll see that they reported on Weds an agreement signed Weds :

World Bank MENA

@WorldBankMENA
23h
Dr. Moustafa Madbouly, #Egypt’s PM and Marina Wes, #WorldBank Country Director witnessed the signing of US$500 million additional financing for #Takaful &#Karama project, to support the Egyptian efforts to expand and improve social safety net..."

The lack of news out of Brazzaville is all the more curious : Maybe WB involvement in Sounda is small-scale ? Or maybe there IS a news blackout....but by the WB ? Or maybe some of the deals haven't yet actually been concluded...?

We watch and wait...As the Arabic saying has it ' Patience is a beautiful thing'.
ATB

Hi guys,

Whatever the problem is, I'm sure it won't take too long to sort out. And - if the drill's in place - it's not as though anything down there is going anywhere...…;->

Keep calm and carry on !
ATB

Andre01,

.." not done much in 8 years, you sure? Lol..."
Yes, in terms of return to shareholders, I'm quite sure. You're confusing input with outcome (to date). I'm sure AT and co have been extremely busy beavering away on all sorts of possible ways of moving things forward, it's not their fault that up to now the causes and conditions haven't been right.
If it works, they'll be heroes, if it doesn't they'll be forgotten.
Next you'll be complaining that life isn't fair.

ATB

Hi ShrewdDude67,

In reverse order :
- Thanks for the article, v interesting, esp. the bit that buyer gets to pay out of project revenues ie massively deferred and eliminates most project execution risk;
- don't know if ZIOC can sell w/out GLEN's OK (or v.versa), you often give your partner the right of first refusal or right to match;
- what would the BoD take as cash offer ? No idea. Depends on the key decision-makers' personal circs, age/time horizon, alternative uses for the proceeds etc etc. Could even be influenced by whether they like the buyer or not. Don't laugh : that's a big reason for cuddly Warren Buffet's success with family-owned businesses that want to sell up.
They'd presumably want to make a profit, so you have to work out their current outlay : I guessed a week or so ago, somewhere between 20-40p, anything more is 'profit', before time value of money/opportunity cost considerations etc.

HTH
This is what I wrote on 2 Sept. :
Hi DGR 1980,

I don't think you can - or should - link any sale price to the IPO price.
Remember, the IPO at £1.56 was only re about 40m of 280 m shares, half going to ZIOC's coffers, half to allow founder shareholders to recoup a big chunk of their sunk costs.
So , leaving aside the opportunity cost, the founder shareholders would probably have recovered their entire investment outlay at an s/p of 20-40 p (wild-assed guess), anything more is profit.
The new shares for incentivised management have an exercise price of 0.01p (one hundredth of a penny). So ANYTHING over 0.01p is profit for them. A hypothetical sale at TODAY'S price nets (ignoring possible CGT) nearly £ 1.4 million for the lucky 3.

The ONLY possible relevance of £ 1.56 is a sentimental, ego-driven thing : ZIOC BoD MIGHT feel a moral duty to make sure that the PI's who paid £ 1.56 at IPO at least got their money back...…

No disrespect to the BoD (who in other respects seem to be playing a pretty straight bat), but I wouldn't hang my hat on that....and I don't think anyone else should either.

ATB
To be clear : I THINK the asset SHOULD be worth at least £ 1.56...….and possibly a good deal more......but not for the reasons you've given.

Andre01,

"They as in the entity have spent $300m, ZIOC didnt dilute for that or ever in 8 years"

Wrong again. ZIOC isn't 'the entity', Zanaga aka Jumelles is. ZIOC did the initial legwork, Xstrata bought in, giving ZIOC a free carry in consideration of it (Xstrata) covering the subsequent explo/development costs, which they agreed to value as being 'worth' 50% +1 of ZIOC's original stake.

Since the Project has been on care and maintenance pretty much since IPO, because it was followed almost immediately by commodity price collapse, there's been hardly any spend, hence no need to dilute.

It's somewhat missing the point to praise the company for not diluting when that's because (no disrespect to AT and co), it's not actually been doing very much in the last 8 years.....

Obviously, if the facts don't matter then yes, I agree, you can of course have it both ways.

ATB

Andre01,

You can't have it both ways....and, in fact, you don't. You're wrong on both counts.

You first claim that ZIOC have 'spent' $300m, I showed they haven't.
You then say they haven't raised any money' from the public, since going from private to public. I showed how much they raised, in their Initial PUBLIC Offering, about $ 30M, that's what they've been living off ever since.

You'll be telling me next that the BoD will want £1.56 for starters, 'because that's the IPO price'.
Sheesh !
ATB

Hi ericeric et al,

Cash is seemingly fairly tight, I doubt they're considering a placing (famous last words).

Why not ?

Because a placing involves dilution and dilution isn't in the Directors/majority owners (and now management !) interest, esp. at current low levels : to raise £ 5 million, say, you'd have to place 50m+ shares (more, if at a discount); if underwritten, there'd be high fees to pay; who amongst the PI community would be likely (unless there's a really good story to tell) to reach into their pockets on a 1-for-6 basis (15% new money) ? And I doubt the BoD (and now management) would be impressed at having to cough up £££££ to avoid dilution.

More likely, I think , would be a Shareholder Loan (likely involving the BoD/HNWI's), who stump up cash, buit in a different way : a high interest loan, maybe on favourable conversion terms, with downside protection from being higher up the creditor chain. No detailed info memo or intrusive enquiries needed. Oh, and the recently renewed Special Resolutions would make it administratively straightforward.

Hype to the downside is as unhelpful as hype to the upside !

ATB

Hi Andre01,

…" In that time they have spent $300m without raising a penny...."

People keep on getting this wrong.
ZIOC raised at IPO about $60M, half of which went to the founder shareholders (reimbursing them for a large chunk of their historic outgoings), $30 M for the Company for its future expenditure.
Xstrata bought in to the Project, by covering costs for exploration and feasibility study etc.
GLEN bought Xstrata and picked up its interest in Zanaga as an incidental / afterthought. ZIOC has written down the 'value'of its investment, over the years, I imagine GLEN has done the same(easier to do on a much larger balance-sheet, of course).

Cliff Elphick, at the last AGM, acknowledged ZIOC's own outgoings had been 'minimal' and that Xstrata/GLEN's spend was around $ 350 M (I think he may have overstated, but WTFDIK).

ATB

Hi Fourprinces,

Ah ! So the SEZ video AND the signing ceremony were BOTH missed , when they cut to the studio chat.....?
If so, my bad......and yes, an epic fail on the broadcaster's part.

Let's see what tomorrow brings. And thanks for clarifying.
ATB

Hi Sooty,

Thanks for clarifying. The relevant bit I was commenting on was the extract : …"You don't run a video about the SEZ's straight before a signing ceremony if those signings don't involve those SEZ's #ZIOC".."

I hadn't then - and haven't yet - seen any video running. Or actually a signing ceremony (though I did comment 'pens at the ready' when I saw people setting things up). That was the thrust of my observation.

Do you think that the coverage we watched managed to miss out "the best bits" ? If so, epic fail !

I'm sure it /whatever actually happened will come out in the wash, eventually...

ATB

Hi sooty,

I see I've made rather a lot of remarks today ;-<
Which one(s) in particular do you think might be unreasonable/incorrect, if so I'm happy to review or retract , as needed.

ATB

Hi Fourprinces,

…"SEZ and Pointe Noir contracts..."

Two separate contracts ? Anything about Sounda dam (power) or CFCO (rail transport)?

TIA and ATB

I'd be more impressed if GLEN name-checked ZIOC/Zanaga…...