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Be interesting what Share Soc come up with in April - they are asking ex workers to get in touch
“It wouldn’t necessarily bother me, but these were individual people I would drive past every morning,” says the former worker. “How would I feel if I was them?”
Anglo-American and DMC both declined to comment.
THE END!
Anglo American’s crop nutrient’s business, the division which housed Sirius post-takeover, ended its contract with DMC in August 2020, around the time it is claimed the contractor was preparing to present its findings. A spokesman at Anglo said at the time the new structure “provides us with simpler internal processes and allows us to better manage [the work].”
It is claimed others working on the project challenged Sirius’s time-frame even before DMC’s review. Sources said AMC, a shaft-sinking contractor which had been working with Sirius in 2018, put forward a time-frame longer than wanted. Sirius ended work with AMC in 2018 before finalising a contract, hiring DMC instead in February 2018.
There were separate problems along the way. In May 2019, Sirius, working with other contractors, used a special machine to burrow one 120m section of the project. The 115.2m reached was hailed as a “world record” for the machine but the hole was not as straight as it should have been, sources claimed, and there were calls for adjustments to accommodate it. Some jokingly refer to it as the “banana shaft”. One former worker calls it "a failure spun as a success".
© Provided by The Telegraph Woodsmith Mine
When Anglo-American took over in March 2020, boss Mark Cutifani hailed a “new chapter” for the project and in February the next year Anglo said it was “working through” detailed scheduling of the two main shafts. It planned to present final capital and schedule estimates for the whole project to the board in mid-2021.
Then, in July 2021, Anglo said it was “adjusting the shaft schedule and ventilation to our standards,” and the budget and schedule would be finished in February 2022.
In December 2021, it said it planned to “optimise the configuration of the project,” to increase production capacity and use a more efficient mining method, with the final budget and schedule now due at the end of 2022.
At the time Cutifani said he was “very happy” with the project, but was “going to take the necessary time to get every aspect of the design right.”
He is leaving the company after nine years in April with successor Duncan Wanblad, an insider reported to have driven Anglo’s deal to buy Woodsmith, tasked with taking the project forward.
Fraser moved across to Anglo-American after the takeover but last month stepped aside from leading Woodsmith. He is being replaced by Tom McCulley, who has led Anglo’s giant Quellaveco copper project in southern Peru.
Shareholders in the former Sirius Minerals, meanwhile, are still feeling burned by the collapse of the company. Sharesoc, which represents retail investors, said last month it has been “working with potential legal partners to consider potential claims” to recover losses, stressing there is “no guarantee” a viable claim will be found.
Some who worked on the project have sympathy with their anger.
Cont’d (gosh it’s long)!
Gina Rinehart, thought to be Australia’s richest woman, invested £245m alongside plans to buy 20,000 tonnes a year of the mine’s products for her farms.
In 2017 Sirius graduated from AIM to the FTSE 250 and in mid-2019 told shareholders it had raised $825m, saying it was on track to “achieve first polyhalite in 2021" and “commercial production on time and in line with its cost schedule.”
But things rapidly unravelled. In September 2019, Sirius blamed market conditions as it pulled plans to raise $500m in bonds, key to unlocking a $2.5bn credit line from JP Morgan. The Government would not back the project with a guarantee, bosses argued, as they launched a strategic review.
Two months later, bosses came back to the stock exchange with a new plan and to report talks with “potential strategic partners and debt investors” to raise $600m. It said a 23-month timeframe to reach polyhalite could potentially be cut between three to seven months. The second quarter of 2022 was pinpointed as a target date.
That has also been called into doubt, however. DMC, the contractor hired by Sirius in 2018 to sink the main shafts on the project, is understood to have carried out a review in 2020, after Anglo took over. It is believed to have found that first polyhalite could realistically take more than three-and-a-half years - indicating August 2024.
DMC is believed to have concluded that a schedule developed with external consultants in 2019 missed out parts of the work or overestimated how quickly things could be done, including on lining the shafts, grouting, and getting crews up to speed on using equipment.
The findings are also understood to have raised questions about the impact of heat in the shaft, saying this could make it difficult to sink beyond 900m. The risk of water in shafts from abandoned boreholes could also trigger delays, it warned. The company had worked on similar deep shafts for BHP’s giant Jansen fertiliser project in Canada.
Anglo American’s crop nutrient’s business, the division which housed Sirius post-takeover, ended its contract with DMC in August 2020, around the time it is claimed the contractor was preparing to present its findings. A spokesman at Anglo said at the time the new structure “provides us with simpler internal processes and allows us to better manage [the work].”
It is claimed others working on the project challenged Sirius’s time-frame even before DMC’s review. Sources said AMC, a shaft-sinking contractor which had been working with Sirius in 2018, put forward a time-frame longer than wanted. Sirius ended work with AMC in 2018 before finalising a contract, hiring DMC instead in February 2018.
Cont’d
Mining titan's bet on fertiliser jackpot under the North York Moors hits trouble
Rachel Millard
1 day ago
A structure on Sirius Minerals' Woodsmith polyhalite mine site rises above farmland at Sneatonthorpe, near Whitb - Asadour Guzelian
The team at Sirius Minerals’ and their hard-hatted miners drafted in from around the world had a stretching goal ahead.
It was 2018 and a target of May 2021 had been set at its headquarters on the outskirts of Scarborough, Yorkshire. Pushed internally and highlighted to investors, the month was when the mining start-up hoped its nearby diggers would first hit the rich seam of polyhalite - a type of fertiliser - running deep underneath the North York Moors National Park.
It was an ambitious goal - six months ahead of its base case at the end of 2021. But it would be well worth it: marking a significant milestone and helping towards its singular goal of first commercial fertiliser production by mid-2024.
Both the May 2021 target and the less stretching end-of-year target have been and gone, with no polyhalite yet produced. In late 2019 Sirius Minerals ran out of money and was bought by FTSE 100 mining giant Anglo-American for £405m - a steep cut to its £1.8bn stock market value less than two years earlier.
Thousands of private, individual shareholders, many of whom lived locally, lost huge sums amid the takeover. They had bought into the company’s powerful narrative of rejuvenating the area by creating thousands of jobs and bringing back deep mining years after the coal pits closed.
Anglo-American is still going ahead with the Woodsmith project and expects to invest a further $700m (£513m) this year. It has flagged changes to the mine’s design and capacity and a "more conservative schedule" amid an extensive review. It now does not plan to produce a full budget and schedule until the end of this year.
But sources familiar with the project cast doubts - dating back to before 2020 - over whether Sirius Minerals’ time-frame was ever realistic, given the complexity and size of the mine. It raises questions over one of Britain’s biggest infrastructure projects and retail investment blow-ups in recent years.
Mining fertiliser in a Yorkshire national park is no easy task. The Woodsmith mine involves burrowing two main 1.5km-deep shafts and digging a 37km-long tunnel north-west to take the polyhalite up to Wilton, near Redcar, for processing and export globally.
© Provided by The Telegraph Sirius Minerals' Woodsmith polyhalite mine site dominates the skyline above Whitby, North Yorkshire - Asadour Guzelian/
Led by chief executive and founder Chris Fraser, it got off to a good start. The ex-banker, born in Somerset before growing up in Australia, struck up deals with landowners, won over planning authorities and secured big backers alongside its army of retail shareholders.
Cont’d
Anyone got full article?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/01/21/mining-titans-bet-fertiliser-jackpot-north-york-moors-hits-trouble/
I’m going to really enjoy following the progress of Genflow. Could literally be life changing and great to be invested in something that hopefully can delay age related diseases. Great start today as well - and so it should have been!
Just catching up - I know I don’t say much on here - mainly because I used to say far too much on LSE - mostly uninformative and arguing with derampers which only feeds them! Also as far as GGP goes - it’s full of such great researchers that I can’t add much of value!
I just wanted to say though that I’m so sorry Mattyboy. As a parent of a son who’s going to need care for ever I know what you’ve sacrificed in your life to look after your dad - but I think by doing that you can be at peace for ever as you’ve truly done your best and made such a difference to his last years. Also as someone who depends on carers - good carers are very hard to find and always in demand and appreciated so much by people whose loved ones they are looking after. Just wish they got paid better and hopefully that will happen one day because they deserve it and work very hard for it. I don’t know what I’d do without them and it’s one of my motivations for investing and when I’m no longer around - to provide for my son (and other children - better add that)! I hope you don’t have to sell your shares and as others have said with the right legal advice I’m sure you won’t have to. Good luck.
Also Tom - so happy for you as well - now you can enjoy 2022 without any worry - must be a load off your mind.
As far as GGP goes I think there’s so much to look forward to over the coming weeks and I can’t wait for SP to begin to reflect that. I find those not invested just underestimate it so much. It’s such an exciting share to be in with so many possibilities.
All the best to everyone for this year and whatever it throws at us - so many investors on here deserve for GGP to do well and give them greater financial security - hopefully we’ve all got a very good shot at that.
Just like to say I hope everyone had a Happy Christmas yesterday and enjoying Boxing Day. Looking forward to seeing what 2022 brings and we go again next year which I’m looking forward to. Thank you again to all the great posters on here
Issued 23 December 2021
Sirius Minerals Update #15
Following the update in May, the Sirius Claim Group has been working with potential legal partners to consider potential claims.
There are a number of different claims that are being considered but, in all cases, they must pass the significant challenge of not only being considered technically viable by both legal and financial partners but also, that any derived awards/damages/compensation must substantiate the time, effort and risk of pursuing. It follows therefore, that reviewing potential claims is a time consuming and very detailed piece of work but we are confident that this stage of the process will be concluded by April next year. We would also remind readers that despite all the hard work that has been done so far, there is no guarantee that a viable claim as outlined above will be found.
As we enter this final period of review the more information, we have to collaborate what we know the better. Therefore, we would welcome contact from any previous employees of Sirius Minerals if they have any information to share, this would be confidential and can be anonymous simply email us: siriusclaim@montana55.co.uk
We truly appreciate that it is frustrating for ex-shareholders that we cannot provide further detail at this stage but, this is to ensure that we do not prejudice any claim(s) and we ask for your patience and understanding.
For those that have followed the related news over the last 20 months you will have seen that Anglo American have now removed Chris Fraser from the project, meaning that all the original management has now been changed. Additionally, they have made both financial and timescale reassessments of the project. Maybe they also now think that everything previously stated was not necessarily correct.
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
Best regards,
Paul Anscombe
Chair - Sirius Claim Group
Hi Panama, I wrote a much shorter post on telegram earlier but basically thinking the same way. I think there’s more to this in a positive way. Having said that, I won’t lie, I’m a bit disappointed, and always feel Primary Bid is a bit of a lottery - would have preferred another way for shareholders to participate. But … we all go again tomorrow … onwards and upwards
Hello Cagney, I have had my tear ducts blocked and I use artificial tears but when they were really sore after having my first child - think it was hormone related (I’m a lady -Fred’s my lucky name)! my eyes kept getting infected and it’s like having sawdust in your eyes! But loads of conditions have dry eyes as a side effect.
Nice to see SP up today though!
Just great news - sometimes it’s nice to be reminded why it’s good to hold shares long term!
LSE - allowing paid derampers and trolls to ruin decent share chat groups while at the same time banning the serious knowledgable investors???
Yes it’s true - that’s what happens - and been going on a while - and that’s why they are losing serious investors to other chat forums like telegram. My two favourite LSE chat - Sirius Minerals - round the clock paid derampers were allowed to dominate and ruin the last weeks before Sirius was bought out - an absolute disgrace and now LSE are losing control of GGP chat because they can’t police it properly
Here we go with your 3-6 posts '1 month old dodge account' you won't last long here, believe me.... Spreading FUD - fear uncertainty and doubt - over the bulk underground, because that's essentially the only unknown left that such disingenuous posts can target.
Last year we had months and months of tecnhical FUD with the GreenTool and others - who said Havieron would never be economic... but here we are 12 months later with a gigantic starter deposit, a $50m decline going in, and $50m GGP cash funding to DFS, and a published phase 1 mine PFS to take to the bank ... so NCM can get ore to Telfer ASAP.
You may be able to confuse and scare the un-researched with your manipulation, but you cannot touch Bamps or me.
For the rest of you MrBig is a skilled and devious operator who last night was attempting to exploit an ostensibly clever argument. The posts were subsequently removed this am. For the correct reasons.
What he/she was trying to do last night was apply NCM's conservative, underground stoping phase 1 mine operational costs @ $84/tonne - actually $81/tonne according to GGP using the correct exchange rate to Bulk Underground production.
The first Stoping operation has naturally has lower volumes, due to the inherent volume limitations of the Stoping technique and higher costs - ore transport to surface limitation, requirement for drill and blast / explosives, and extra material handling, and subsequence labour in back pasting costs )
But you cannot apply this to the anticipated Bulk under ground block caving grades of the larger scale deposit where the cost per tonne would be circa $25-27/tonne
This is a totally and fundamentally inappropriate comparison made by BiggL - It's like comparing two completely different company cost structures, AND specifically designed to imply that anything under 1.5g is likely to be 'uneconomic'...
And It's total BS becuase we ALL know that Cadia is economic down to 0.4g/t Au... specifically due the bulk efficiencies of the operational costs.
And very much like comparing and interweaving the cost structure of building Ferraris directly to Ford Fiestas -
IE both make massive profits, BUT in TOTALLY different ways . Obviously You cannot make a profit building Ford fiestas in the way you build a Ferrari though. That would be loss making.
That's the best analogy I can come up with. And that is the tactic of this poster.