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I wouldn't be so quick, to pass that resolution it needs 75% of the votes cast to be in favour, it's not a guarantee they will get it. The fact that Kirk is on youtube canvassing for votes might suggest that early voting is not going the way they want.
"We're looking to minimise dilution" - said by the man who jumped into bed with Bergen and cost us 100 million shares as a result. Laughable.
The increase in Resolution 6 wouldn't be quite as necessary if they hadn't given Jason an 85% pay rise when he got promoted from COO to CEO. Although it must be difficult to survive on £200k a year. And with all his great achievements in the last 15 years, he thoroughly deserves £31,000 a month.
gaff11, authority to issue up to 359 million new shares. If it's passed, expect a placing before Christmas. 300 million shares at 1.2p would be enough to fill the trough for another 12 months.
The problem isn't negative news, it's the fact that there's been virtually sod all positive news for so long, since just before the Bergen deal. Mike said on that conference call in August last year that it would be a great deal for shareholders, as Bergen would be exercising into a rising share price on the back of all the positive news flow they were going to generate.
Now have a look at every RNS in the last 18 months. Where is all this positive news flow he talked about? We had 2 RNSs in August last year, an MOA with the EOR and the MOU with Merlin. After that we had nothing for more than 14 months until the Morocco Pilot RNS three weeks ago. OK, there was also the RNSs relating to Utah, but Mike can't have been thinking about them, that conference call was 6 months before we signed the MOU with Tomco, so he can't have been predicting any news on that front. They probably hadn't had any contact with Tomco at that stage.
So apart from the Utah curveball, we had sod all progress worthy of an RNS for well over 14 months. Not even a scabby sausage thrown our way. It's no wonder that Bergen are on track to get 140 - 150 million shares for their £2m investment.
And in response to your ever present comments that the current share price is irrelevant, of course it's been bloody relevant, because of Bergen and the price which they exercise at. A bog standard placing at 4 or 5 p last summer would have raised the £2m, 40 or 50 million new shares. That would still have been at a 30 - 45% discount to the share price at that time. Thanks to Kirk's amazing Bergen deal, 40 or 50 million new shares will now become 140 or 150 million. 100 million extra shares in circulation means your investment will be worth 10% less. Have a think about it.
Another thing which is mentioned, but has never been specifically quantified, is the savings from the reduced handling and storage costs, since MSAR can be stored at ambient temperatures and doesn't need to be heated to 100C like standard HFO.
I read an article a while ago which was discussing the pros and cons of shipping companies switching to either VLSFO or MGO for IMO 2020. It mentioned that when comparing the prices of the two fuels, it should also be remembered that VLSFO would have additional costs of between 1 and 2% because it would need to be heated, unlike MGO which is more like a standard diesel fuel. It makes sense, a ship's fuel tank with 6,000 tons of HFO (over 950,000 litres) is going to need a lot of energy to heat it to 100C.
MSAR must deliver similar savings, I presumed it wasn't quantified because it was only a minimal saving, but if it's between 1 and 2%, why the hell aren't they advertising this fact? 10% cheaper to buy + use 5% less fuel + save 1-2% on handling costs, sounds a hell of a lot more impressive than just 10% cheaper.
Here's what we've got on our website -
https://www.quadrisefuels.com/msar-technology/the-benefits-of-msar/
"enhanced combustion features" and "Highly efficient combustion and carbon burnout" is the best I can find, why not specifically boast that it can increase fuel efficiency by 5%? Thay must know the exact figures, it was used for 1,600 hours on the Seago Istanbul.
I couldn't agree more 46G, that has been the biggest problem we've had with this company. There has never been much of a problem with the actual product itself, just the people trying to sell it. Jason may well be the world's leading emulsion fuel expert, he's also the one of the world's worst salesmen, just look at his 15 year record. Being a good salesman is completely different to being a good engineer, a great salesman could probably sell you something you don't need at a price which you can't afford. We've never had that ability.
One specific thing which I have never heard them mention once, is increased fuel efficiency. Every document or report I have ever read on emulsion fuels states that they can increase fuel efficiency and therefore decrease fuel consumption by an average of around 5%. Even by adding water to the diesel you burn in your car can have the same effect. It makes sense, all of that black soot and PM which is emitted when burning HFO is instead burned in the engine, no longer wasted. Why have QFI never mentioned this? If MSAR is 10% less expensive to buy compared to HFO, great, but should we not also be shouting from the rooftops that it means you use 5% less of it?
Check out the website of this company -
https://sulnoxgroup.com/products/berol-6446-hfo-fuel-emulsifier/
They are not a direct competitor, they are Water-In-Oil, but they also use Nouryon chemicals, exactly the same as we do. (Their shares are currently suspended, that's another story, there seems to be a shareholder coup in progress.) They've got efficiency splashed all over their documentation, although given that it won't be any cheaper to buy the HFO with their system, it's probably the only way the end user could save money.
Page 24 of the Annual Report will show you the size of the gravy train.
https://wp-quadrise-fuels-2020.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/media/2020/11/02180326/Annual-Report-and-Accounts-year-ended-30-June-2020.pdf
Compare that to the money which doctors and nurses are paid to work in ICUs, working 80 - 90 hours a week, trying to save people's lives, and putting their own lives in danger in the process thanks to the PPE situation. They're probably only paid about a third, maybe even a quarter of what this lot get. It's obscene. They must have burned through close to £50 million in the last 15 years funding their lavish lifestyles, Jason flying around Europe at the weekend in his little private plane.
And they have achieved? The square root of sweet FA.
If there ever is a £1 a share get-together to celebrate, the pub will be full of zimmer frames and mobility scooters.
If we get to the end of January and Mike comes back, cap in hand, looking for more cash, so he can sit in his home office, scratching his hole, paying himself 17 grand a month for the privilege, you will probably get to experience exactly how Bill Murray felt. I can almost predict what he will say already, and I don't even need a stupid crystal ball to do it.
"2021 is going to be the year that we change from being a company with great potential, to actually delivering on that opportunity, for all our great and loyal shareholders."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juo0QqsdV9k&t=399s
What are you talking about Hotfinance14? That's the second time in a day you've suggested Mike is going to be in for a torrid time at the AGM. There will be nobody there, the doors will be closed because of Covid, so who is going to be grilling Mike? Jason? One of the cleaners?
They are doing the Investor Meet Company Q&A afterwards, but there are no live calls on that like previous Conference Calls, only questions submitted by email or online. So you can ask as many awkward, difficult and challenging questions as you like, I'm pretty sure they will just ignore those ones and answer the nice, easy, happy, smiley ones. Why make life difficult for yourself.
I'm confused at why they can't produce the 60 tons at QRF. A standard MMU is 1000 tons per day output, but I think QRF has a smaller one, a baby-MMU, maybe only 500 tpd. Even if it's only 100 tpd, it would still take less than a day of production. Did Mike not even mention this as an advantage in a recent interview, that they had the production capabilities at QRF for doing small trials, but 60 tons is too much? For me, what Kirk wanted to say was it would be possible to produce at QRF, but there will be easier and more sensible options.
The new industrial trial in Morocco is due to start in January, so if the fuel is to be produced at Cepsa, they had better get their finger out and start the re-installation of the MMU ASAP, which will obviously need an RNS first. If the fuel for the 2 LONO trials is also to be produced at San Roque, it would make perfect sense I suppose. Without producing the fuel in-country (now no longer possible anyway, all the Moroccan refineries are closed), it's about as close as you can get, a couple of hours by boat.
Indigo, I suggest you channel some of that hatred into a bit of schadenfreude. It's not something I've ever been a fan of, but I can make an exception for our Danish friends. They've called it wrong again, if you were the owner of a shipping company and based your strategy over the last few years on doing the exact opposite of whatever Maersk were doing, you would probably have quite a successful business. Poor Soren, he is a bit of a numpty.
https://theloadstar.com/still-no-return-on-the-horizon-after-carriers-billion-dollar-scrubber-investment/
https://twitter.com/Alphaliner/status/1321377476120059904
This won't help either.
https://shipandbunker.com/news/emea/669206-european-parliament-committee-seeks-to-phase-out-open-loop-scrubbers
https://shipandbunker.com/news/world/280363-maersk-may-invest-in-a-few-scrubbers
"a few scrubbers" = 97
"But there is no major u-turn on the technology" - he should get a job in Boris’s Cabinet
https://shorturl.at/eCFH7
https://www.rivieramm.com/news-content-hub/news-content-hub/msc-sees-hydrogen-biofuels-as-shippingrsquos-fuel-of-the-future-61195
"MSC said it is actively exploring and trialling a range of alternative fuels and technologies and is already actively bunkering biofuels at scale."
"MSC is also pioneering the large-scale use of biofuel blends for container ships and is already bunkering up to 30% biofuel blends on a routine basis in Rotterdam."
A coincidence or not?
"Green MSAR®" incorporates biofuels or derivatives into MSAR® (displacing water and residue) with Nouryon additives.
"Best off ya toddle then to the premium bonds , nothing much going to happen here for few months yet."
What about the contracts for the 2 LONO trials? What about the Green MSAR launch? What about Ecuador? What about Mexico? What about JGC? Have they cancelled all the other projects, now they are only working on Utah and Morocco?
https://shipandbunker.com/news/world/385070-395-container-ships-have-had-scrubbers-fitted-in-2020-alphaliner
Of the top ten container lines, MSC and Maersk have the highest amount of scrubber-fitted container freight capacity, at 1.657 million TEU and 1.221 million TEU, respectively, Alphaliner said. But expressed as a percentage of the company's capacity, HMM has the most at 80%.
Oh yeah, forgot about them. So 4 strong avenues plus any other surprises they might have for us.
We should have news on at least 3 fronts before the end of the year, Tomco/Utah towards the end of Q4 when the trial is complete and then it's a race between Ecuador, which now hopefully won't be delayed until March as originally feared, and the 2 Marine LONOs.
I listened to the Q&A again after downloading it, Jason said he thought there was still a possibility of the 2 LONO trials commencing before the end of the year, but the start of next year was more probable. So Marine would be my favourite to be the first RNS. It's an odds-on certainty they're planning on using Cepsa for production again, it would take 10 months to install an MMU in a new refinery, but if they're just re-installing the old one back in San Roque, the Scoping, FEED & Procurement stages wouldn't be needed this time, that cuts 6 months from the timeline and the 4 months they previously took for construction and commissioning could possibly be shortened too, so maybe doable in 3 months from when the MMU comes out of storage. If the trials are to commence before the end of the year, we would need an RNS in the next 2 weeks at the latest.
The ships used for the LONOs will have to have scrubbers installed, so they are going to be much larger than the Seago Istanbul, they will be the gas-guzzlers of their fleets, so it might take a week of solid production just to get the fuel tanks filled for a transatlantic round trip.
The video recording is now available on the INVESTOR MEET COMPANY website. I've just listened to the part about Ecuador again and Jason did say that he didn't think the tender for Esmeraldas would yield any bidders for the process. This is great news, the best part is that our discussions appear to be completely separate from this tender process, so the delay until Feb/March next year, when they are going to make a decision, is no longer relevant for us. We're back to the possibility of Ecuador news arriving much sooner.
Steady Sam, Ian Williams said something similar in 2012, "the prize is very, very close and it's very large", "imminent and substantial marine contracts". Eight years later we're still waiting!!
We know that the container company is one of the Top 3, if it was Maersk, I presume we would just have named them, plus the Interim LONO was enough for Maersk, if they ever come back to the table, Jason said it would be on commercial terms. So it must be MSC, they have done a huge scrubber investment, 90% chance it's them IMO. The number 3 is CMA CGM, they jumped on the scrubber bandwagon late, got a few, but mostly new builds and also keen on LNG.
If it is MSC, where the hell does that leave Maersk? It would be strange if MSC decided to start a LONO trial but their 2M partner, the ones who initiated Marine MSAR in the first place, just sat on the sidelines. Even more confused.