Member Info for extrader

Speaking of Fortescue, in addition to the apparent suspension at Belinga, FMG's 'get out of jail free' card at IronBridge may be a point of vulnerability :

https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/fortescue-posts-record-tonnes-as-tariff-threat-hangs-over-iron-ore-20250122-p5l6ha

.." The Perth-based miner gained traction at its Iron Bridge operation which was plagued with trouble in ramp-up and produced 1.5 million tonnes of the steelmaking ingredient.

[1.5m tonnes - even if per Q - isn't a lot of 'good stuff' to mix with the 'rust']

The benchmark spot price for ore containing 62 per cent iron fetched an average $US103 a tonne over the December quarter and was at that level on Thursday.

Fortescue produces lower-grade ore than the benchmark, meaning it fetches lower prices. Over the December quarter, prices received fell shy of broker UBS’ expectations; the miner realised an average price of $US87 a dry metric tonne.

Higher-grade ore from Iron Bridge fetched a premium to the benchmark of about 113 per cent.

[ If my maths is correct, that would place IronBridge @ $116 versus FMG's average (blended?) of $86/mt...wow!]

“While we have seen improvements in demand and pricing for concentrates and pellet feed for Iron Bridge in this quarter, the market overall remains quite volatile,” said Graham Howard, Fortescue’s Iron Bridge operations director.

Moreover, Morgan Stanley analysts warned earlier this week that proposed new environmental rules in China requiring steel mills to switch to a higher-grade ore could pose a threat to Fortescue.

Iron Bridge was developed to enhance Fortescue’s product mix by blending its higher-grade ore with its majority lower-grade output..."

FMG may be an outlier, but this is clearly an industry-wide challenge, to a greater or lesser extent.

Base on apparent existential threat, I think FMG itself must be a serious candidate for any deal.

GLA and ATB

.."It occurs to me that the lack of such buying so far may be due to purchase restrictions imposed in NDA documentation..."

As my late father-in-law would say, those NDA's would have to be 'tighter than a fish's a*se'...which is water-tight!

More seriously, I'm surprised that there's not been any small-scale buying from someone overhearing a random comment, the waste-paper basket emptier, the 'human factor' somewhere along the line.

However, for a wholesale investor, the opportunity to pick up for 8p something 'worth' 160p - and getting a very good 'blended price' - is surely what the whole game at Pilbara is about ?? !! ;-> ;->

I'm reminded when Lloyds Bank had a tilt at Standard Chartered a few decades back; StanChart was rescued by a 'white knight'. My boss reportedly had to deal with Easa Saleh AlGurg (UAE ambassador to the UK at the time and Lloyds' largest shareholder) who was apparently aggrieved that Sir Jeremy Morse (Lloyds Chair) hadn't allowed Easa (and mates) in on the secret : Easa had to be persuaded that concert party rules were somewhat frowned on.

That was a different time and generation, of course.

Both here and in the Gulf.

Maybe there'll be no buying interest evident until the (surely apocryphal) moment when an RNS is filed at Regulatory News Service a few hours before release.

Hmmmm...

GLA and ATB

And a little more re Congo-Brazzaville as a prospect...

https://apanews.net/congo-aims-to-double-oil-production-with-new-projects-and-revitalization-efforts/

.."The Republic of Congo is poised for significant growth in oil production, with ambitious plans to double output to 500,000 barrels per day by 2025. This ambitious target is being driven by a series of new projects and revitalization efforts in existing oil fields...." etc

GLA

And another, maybe more likely negative scenario might be where a couple of the PSI's got distracted by M&A activity (a) with each other (b) with 3rd parties, taking 4 (or more) pairs of eyes off the little ZIOC ball...

Well, 'shortly' has a slightly greater sense of immediacy than the 'in due course' that is what we've normally been given in the past.

If someone has an empty weekend, they could do a word-search and tabulate relative frequency of usage of each. I get the impression this is the first use of 'shortly'.

And OTOH, it's likely that ZIOC isn't in control of the responsiveness and agendas of participants and perhaps even the precise choreography of events.

We're dealing with big bucks here...and even bigger egos*

* Did anyone see Trump's Q & A at Davos? At one point, someone started a question with 'I understand you've already spoken with Xi' .

Trump immediately corrected 'He called me', before going on to answer....

Protocol, hierarchy, precedence , who/whom?, etc etc.

AFAICS/AIUI

GLA and ATB

Well, Xstrata got 50% +1 share for committing to a certain amount of expenditure and certain milestones.

Let's assume no-one bites next month. Price/offtake issues/country risk/macro-economic outlook, whatever.

How can Elphick and co keep things moving? After all this speculation about the fabulous potential of the resource, if ZIOC isn't seen to progress it now, C-B might feel entitled to revoke the concession.

The most immediate priorities seem to be FEED and proving up the full resource.

We've been told (MK) in July 2024 that FEED would take 12-18 months, let's say 12 months from now (assuming nothing's been done so far). Somebody ventured a cost of $20m or so, IIRC.

One key input affecting FEED (and eventual sale price) is be proving up the eventual scale of the resource - e.g. do we engineer for 50mtpa and re-size slurry/handling equipment/power needs etc accordingly?

Would - for the sake of argument - 12 months and another $30 m be enough time/budget to do this. Does anybody know?

Now suppose a Potential Strategic Investor ('PSI') were to offer - absent any other bidders- to bankroll ZIOC for a quick US$ 50m, in return for an initial 10% stake (67.5 m new shares) total 750m -ish, giving the business an implied value of $ 550m/74c or 62p a share.

To incentivise the PSI, he gets first dibs (but not exclusivity) on follow-on , perhaps by an option on a sliding scale formula where the higher the ultimately proven resource, the greater %age of the co he can acquire at NAV (with detailed, pre-agreed assumptions as to the calculation basis for both formulae). Simplistically, he's motivated to maximise the resource, because that maximises his eventual stake . I imagine Elphick/GLEN would want to keep a 'blocking' stake under worst case for them (ie PSI best case) scenario.

If the PSI's stake is sufficiently large , he can then syndicate his shareholding, offering minority stakes to 'useful/complementary' stakeholders in a consortium that then finances the overall Project.

Under this scenario, we'd have the prospect of a 'read-across' revaluation of our shareholding to 60p-ish; which we could monetise by selling in the market); or keep a paper profit and the prospect of a progressively smaller slice of a progressively larger (self-financed) cake in the (much) longer term ( 5+ years).

Is that negative enough, StarBright ? ;->

If not : At the less parochial level and in no particular order , we could see an unfortunate death (any of Trump, Putin, Xi, Big Den); local conflicts; a palace coup (C-B); South China Sea/Taiwan conflict, East-West., another Covid-type pandemic.......

If my hypothetical came about, I'd be disappointed .....but could still afford to drown my sorrows with some very expensive drink!

I'd be interested in other 'doomsday ' scenarios.

GLA and ATB

At the risk of labouring the point, this is what a 2-minute skim of the QED board brought up, from well-informed poster JakNife :

"After the umpteenth time of Quadrise deliberately spiking the share price in order to get a placing away Z1CO and hazl both thought that buying at 4.5p would be a good idea and encouraged people to do exactly that (ie criticised JakNife).

I give it two months at most before the next placing, this board have a track record of spiking the share price in advance of every fund raise. It suckers in retail punters who see the illusion of momentum and buy on the back of that. The last two times the company ended up placing at 1.25p. Does anyone know a more bent company on AIM?

JakNife

========================================================

see: https://uk.advfn.com/cmn/fbb/thread.php3?id=51365520&from=2906#firstpost

Do you now understand?

Proposed Placing, Subscription and Retail Offer

"Quadrise Plc (AIM:QED), the supplier of innovative energy solutions for a cleaner planet, today announces its intention to conduct a placing (the "Placing") and subscription (the "Subscription") of new ordinary shares of £0.01 each in the capital of the Company ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 3 pence per new Ordinary Share (the "Issue Price") to institutional and other investors to raise gross proceeds of a minimum of £3 million."

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/QED/proposed-placing-subscription-and-retail-offer/16867381

Can you see how you've been legged over?.."

Compare and contrast.

HTH

Circling back to Bandar at Davos and his meetings with industry leaders.

'Al-Khorayef met with the CEO of the London Metal Exchange, the Chairman of Glencore, the CEO of PepsiCo and the head of Siemens Global's technology and strategy unit. These meetings are part of Saudi Arabia's vision to develop international partnerships in the industrial and mining sectors. .."

Leave aside Pepsi and Siemens and he met with (1) GLEN and (2) the head of the LME, which 'is a significant player in the global metals market, offering futures and options contracts for base metals, as well as hedging and physical delivery services.."

LME is owned by HKEX, whose largest single shareholder (6/13 directors) is the Hong Kong Government (and will doubtless 'coordinate' its policies/activities with the mainland).

The earlier deal talks allegedly foundered on a disagreement over offtake rights, with Wilt of Ma'aden stating publicly that it wanted" to secure trading and offtake rights as part of their strategic goals and partnerships'.

Maybe the 'cunning plan' is for Saudi Inc to get its offtake needs met by GLEN and its trading skills expertise from a Chinese-controlled entity, each side keeping the other honest, as it were ?

GLA

.."The project is solid, but cash is king.

I really don’t see any difference in looking at QED and ZIOC."

You can't have looked very hard.

https://www.quadrise.com/technology/benefits/

QED has an unproven emulsified fuel proposition that purports to achieve SOME reduction in NOX and CO2 emissions vs HFO.

.."MSAR® delivers up to 9%* reduction in carbon dioxide, and bioMSAR™ offers over 20% reduction in emissions compared to HFO.."

The Project appears to be vessel trials involving MSC and Cargill.

The scale of QED's activities (and stage of development) can be gauged by this subsequent RNS :

.."Quadrise Plc (AIM: QED), the supplier of innovative energy solutions for a cleaner planet, is pleased to announce the signature of an agreement between the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency ('CINEA') and SEASTARS, a consortium of 17 companies which includes Quadrise

SEASTARS unites research institutes, equipment manufacturers, ship operators, technology providers and naval architects intending to demonstrate well-to-wake greenhouse-gas emissions reductions of at least 30% and energy efficiency improvements of 20% using a combination of marine emission and efficiency improvement technologies.

Emerging marine technologies provided by SEASTARS members will be integrated into eight vessel designs to be market-ready by December 2027. Quadrise "Blend-On-Board" emulsion technology is included in this goal, funded by CINEA's Horizon grant programme.

Following completion of the vessel design stage, SEASTARS will generate tailored decarbonisation recommendations for vessel owners and operators.

Quadrise has been awarded up to EUR 63,500 to complete this work."

So : one of 17 participants in a 3 year trial, for which it will receive Euro 63,500.....

"“Look at me. You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself.”

(Crash, 2004)

Curious article in today's depeches, looks as though his hagiography is in the works (maybe Big Den's consultations with the Vatican were about this..and not a local Cardinal ?)

.. ‘We will certainly make sure that we speak of the builder, we will make sure that we speak of the man of peace, we will ensure the man of consensus, the man of dialogue, and today, we will ensure that we speak of the patriarch’, he said.

According to the chairman of the organising committee, in a country where the average politician is 25 in a country where the average politician from north to south, east to west, from the from the presidential majority to the opposition, from the centre, even from civil so

civil society, were born after the [2 x] struggles for independence, they all have more or less

Denis Sassou N'Guesso in them.

‘Because, often we owe to Denis Sassou N'Guesso either directly or indirectly, our education, our professional careers, or his invisible hand in times of joy or misfortune. '

The campaign [ for canonisation???] kicks off on February 5th, apparently...

GLA

that many Congolese have

been through. This is why it is

reductive to place this man

who has spanned eras and generations

generations as the leader of a

group leader’.

Oops!

.."The US military has moved its Typhon launchers from Laoag airfield in the Philippines to another location on the island of Luzon, in what experts describe as signalling “greater tension” between Beijing and Washington.

The Typhon system, developed by US firm Lockheed Martin, is capable of launching SM-6 and Tomahawk cruise missiles, the latter of which has a range exceeding 1,600km (994 miles) and can reach targets in both China and Russia..."

GLA

Today's FT suggests China demand for coal may be on the wane...

Opinion Lex

China may finally put a lid on coal

Grid upgrades are set to unlock more renewable capacity, putting the fortunes of domestic fossil fuel groups at risk

Snippet : Analysts expect renewables to meet all new electricity demand [Ed.: INCLUDING LIKELY UPSURGE FROM AI DATA CENTRES] in 2025, putting a lid on coal-fired power demand growth. While positive for the environment, it puts the fortunes of the country’s coal giants at risk."

Shares of China Shenhua are down a tenth this year and trade just below 10 times forward earnings, a significant discount to its solar and wind peers. The value shift may already be under way.

ATB

Hi StarBright,

Unfortunately, Cindy Lauper got there first.

And O2's 90,000 capacity might be a bit OTT.

Harva, ExCel's max 68,750 might be nearer the mark, AND can subdivide.

The ExCeL London is owned by the Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (ADNEC).

HTH

.." Rio Tinto of this world will/would be banging the drum hard about the prospects of Zanaga - 12-30mtpa possibly rising 50mtpa for 50 years..."

Not impossible, of course but tricky, that : it would have to reassure Guinea and BaoWu that it's still committed to Simandou; its (supposedly conservative) shareholders that it's not over-exposing itself to more project risk in 'deepest darkest Africa' ; and its Aussie investors, employees and Gubmint that it's not abandoning the lower quality mines that it would have (effectively) identified as 'for the chop'..

FMG, OTOH could legitimately argue that it NEEDED ZIOC to keep the lights on in Australia...

Popcorn at the ready.

ATB and GLA

.."That’s my take on what’s about to happen, and the workaround for the board not to have to make a recommendation they may not be personally minded to accept..."

Interesting point....and esp if there's a concurrent tender offer, where the identity of the tenderer(s) - and therefore likely other eventual consortium members was known/could be deduced.

Depends on the detail of course, but as things stand I'd be minded personally to monetise a large percentage of my holding at the earliest opportunity.

How much I'd want to keep for the upside would depend on a number of things.....not least of which would be the identity/identities of the principals.

Put it this way, I'd be inclined at present to stay in (for a reduced %age) if Elphick did, but wouldn't trust GLEN as far as I could throw them.

Let's see if we're given a choice!

GLA and ATB

PS Abergele.......???

Timeous.

This from South China Morning Post (which is interesting in itself) :

hTTps: www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3295920/philippines-blindsided-mounting-security-threats-amid-fresh-espionage-claims?

.."The Philippines is struggling to contend with mounting security threats, analysts warn, citing amid recent reports of alleged espionage activities that have alarmed the nation.

Their warnings come in the wake of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ announcement that it was looking at possible connections between the arrest of an alleged Chinese spy conducting surveillance operations on the country’s military installations; the discovery of UNDERWATER DRONES drones in various waters across the country; and the proliferation of fake identification cards among foreign nationals.

Without naming a particular country, Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, the Philippine Navy spokesman for the West Philippine Sea, said on Tuesday that “there seems now to be a deliberate and calculated move to map out the country by a foreign power”....

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3293570/drone-discovery-philippines-spurs-call-us-military-expansion?

6 Jan 2025

.."Drone discovery in Philippines spurs call for US military expansion..."

" Who ya gonna call?"

GLA

Is there a gremlin in the house ?

I see 4 - now 5 - msges reported but can only read 1 less.

Any ideas?

TIA

.." I think there are now 2 hot Consortia to secure Zanaga development rights (in partnership with ZIOC):

Rio Tinto and Baowu to reprise their success at developing Simandou, with Manara Minerals securing off take in return for early stage finance, and

Vale to secure the whole with funding from Manara Minerals.

We shall see, of course..."

I've got to believe that Fortescue will be in the mix somewhere (I've just learned the word 'polycule') :

- 'Twiggy' put in a bid for Simandou (excl logistics);

- FMG has an acknowledged 'Pilbara rust' problem, initially to be addressed by admixture, now (post Belinga?) by a newly announced J/V with BaoWu that of itself is unconvincing (pilot plant, 1,500 tpa);

- it appears to have been screwed over at Belinga by new Govt (mandated ?) switch to a 'nation-building' export route via Mayumba;

- twice-bitten, the ZIOC slurry pipeline solution doesn't lend itself to these 'interesting but irrelevant' purposes. It's also the cheapest economically : a value-add, not a value-subtract;

- Twiggy is probably the only 'true believer' on the ESG side of things, pretty much everyone else named is motivated by commercial considerations : he's had a tilt at Inga dam and any number of green hydrogen- related projects at home, in Brazil and in the Gulf;

(that might give him an 'in' with Big Den, if needed; though, tbf, Lula probably has the same card)

- last but not least, AT has referenced him on several occasions as a likely 'player'. This , admittedly, was years ago.

Speaking of 'player', I think he's the rugby type, rather than a golfer.....but that and the Aussie connection might be helpful.

Well, you started it.

GLA and ATB

Would they not have to if there were matters substance, on which PI's (and others) had to make an informed decision (s)?

Like most of us, I suspect, I've not been in this situation-or anything similar - before!

GLA

YMMV was a new one for me...

.."YMMV stands for "your mileage may (or might) vary." This acronym is frequently used to refer to the differences between people's experiences, preferences, or locations. It's similar to AFAIK: "as far as I know." .."

Began on US car comparison websites, apparently.

That's my 'learn something new every day' for today taken care of.

Thanks!

(and for the comments, of course).