Member Info for Gambier14

“Should organize a we want a mine protest, I’m fairly sure more Swedish people would attend a pro mining protest and drown out the sounds of the unwashed protestors”

I’m quite sure they wouldn’t. Most ordinary people have no clue (and do not care) where the commodities that their daily lives depended on, come from. They have a simplistic view that the extraction of hard commodities in their country is damaging and should be stopped. They become hyperbolic when it risks house prices.

Of course it is a hypocrisy because they are the first to complain when prices rise. This is what governments have to manage. An ignorant and hypocritical (NIMBY) populace and clever propaganda from environmentalist groups that claim you can rid the world of mining without consequence to daily lives.

And this is why we have laws to base decisions upon. The problem is that governments are happy to ignore the law in order to obtain opportunistic popularity. Even if the concession is granted, that just makes the beginning of a new war with environmentalists, the Sami and their political allies.

Im quite happy to see consumers see their bills go sky high. I hope it continues for years to come. It might teach them about supply and demand and the geopolitical warfare of those countries who control much of the supply of the commodities that we desperately need.

“In other words...it's a yes but the Sami will receive compensation for their cultural values”

It is in two parts.

The first the strategic, in which it ought to be obvious to anybody with a functioning brain, that the supposed green transition will require metals and if you don’t mine them yourself, you will have to import them.

Now maybe that first part is a struggle for some not very bright people in the Swedish government. Well that is okay, we have a second part that supersedes the first - the law. BEM has met the legal requirements, therefore even if you cannot grasp the necessity of locally mined iron ore, your ignorance can be put aside by the fact that you are obliged to follow the law.

They keep talking of following the legislation, but it is a failure to follow the legislation that has created the delay: ‘we haven’t followed the legislation - we have to follow the legislation’ is the schizoid loop they have been trapped in for years. Swedish people are intelligent and educated, so it must be a small number of people in the government who simply lack a sense of embarrassment.

“Google here shows 15.1p up 4% / Yahoo shows 15.25p up 5%”

Meaningless.It is both and neither. It closed 15.25 off book via publication on echo.

“I think Finland alone will warrant this SP within the next 2 years”

The development in Finland is interesting in of itself and is in a country that has a high functioning system of political decision making regards permitting (the counter opposite of Sweden). It is a smart diversification for the company. However, it seems quite difficult to apply value at this point in the development (and even more difficult to make projections)..

I am interested to understand how you have made a two year projected £125 million valuation for BEMs natural flake graphite production base?

“google showing sp dropped some time after close to 14.6 but I can't see any buys or sells reflecting that”

You won’t be able to see that because so many BEM trades have deferred publication. The liquidity of BEM is terrible. A transaction of say over 10k for BEM is considered large in scale for normal market size and so the trade qualifies for being published at later time.

Today, a number of trades around the 10k to 15k size (qualifying for deferred publication) were traded between 14.5p and 15.25p.

So when people are saying that BEM finished at price X, that is nonsense. It depends at what time a particular counter party decided to publish the trade. With such poor liquidity and wide spreads, the price is at the mercy of off-book reporting times. In a 5 minute period it could be 14.5, 15 or 15.25 depending on the publication time.

For a stock like BEM there isn’t enough liquidity to precisely follow the SP in any meaningful way. It is easier to just round up all the large trades for the day and look at their trade prices. 10k trades at 15p seems a fair, but crude, interpretation of typical trading for today.

The simple fact is that there is very low interest in BEM on the U.K. market. This is understandable considering it is currently a bet on a political decision whose details are quite arcane (and has been for a number of years). This is a serious problem that will have to be addressed by Kurt in the future (assuming there is a positive decision). Of course with a positive decision comes an opportunity to tell a much better story to a wider market of investors.

In the mean time, this daily faux analysis of the SP can be filed under ‘more drivel’.

“Is that hobbit speak 90% to 10%? like 100andeleventeeish”

People seem to be posting things as a positive even if they don’t understand the very thing they are posting. Everything is a positive. Just need to hear Kurt say ‘90% of the time, it works every time’ and we are done.

“sensibility will prevail it has to!”

Which sensibility? There is a widely held sensibility in Sweden which is inclined to stop any mining. Maybe you mean good sense - which would mean granting a concession based on the legal requirements (which BEM have eminently met).

“Potentially Easy Jet can be destroyed if we get another wave”

We are going to get another wave, repeated waves, it is an endemic virus. That isn’t the issue, the issue is how we respond to inevitable repeated peaks and troughs of cases. If the response is to shut everything down every time there is an increase in cases then it won’t be EZJ that will be destroyed - it will be the whole economy.

It is over for governments who think they can shut things down repeatedly for years to come, their economies simply can’t take it anymore. EZJ has plenty of cash and so they are not in any near term danger.

“He reckons the Swedish market is quoting 90% to 10% in favour of a positive decision on Kallak”

What does it mean for a “market” to “quote” on a political decision? What does the “90% to 10%” figure actually reference?

“lbjj you show your ignorance old chap ignoring the fact a few hours before BEM biggest rise in months you proclaimed the rise was baked in and there was not much more to see, yet you are happy to belittle the ability of the younger generation”

Much of the movement is baked in. The current rise is nothing to shout about nor would any retrace be anything to worry about. Ibjj pointed out that the real business is from February onwards and he is totally correct. If it goes up somewhat in the meantime, so what? What incredibly meaningful conclusions are you going to draw from that? Constant backslapping doesn’t change anything.

“lots of companies may have potential but it matters not if people don't buy them”

Sounds just like BEM on the AIM. The current rises are associated with pitiful volumes. Until we get a positive decision and news of interest from big investor, volumes (on a consistent basis) are going to be a problem.

If you have a relatively large investment here (like I have), then getting out on a big surge is going to be tricky. Not only on poor volumes, but the compounded problem of many people trying to do the same thing.

Movement into the small cap market and some large investors / JVs makes this into the big company some people are making claim for. But that doesn’t happen immediately after a positive decision, it follows a fair time afterwards.

The quickest solution would just be a sale of the asset to LKAB, but nobody can possibly know what sort of interest (if any) they have.

So small share number investors are in a good position to sell into any pre-decision rises. They will also be able to get out quickly after the decision. But volumes are otherwise a problem with this share and that won’t be corrected until some serious investors get involved.

This is something Kurt Budge will be acutely aware of when he tries to transform the company from a minor share forum talking shop to a company spoken of regularly in the FT et al.

A positive decision is the first step towards something significant and that still is a wide open question. For many it might be the last step before finally getting out of this share.

“It's the ONLY GAME IN TOWN in a high inflation world and with rising rates”

More drivel. Inflation can cause stocks to drop in the short term. BEM shareholders need stable targeted inflation with a booming economy in China and the US. The higher the iron ore price (from demand), the better the economics for BEM and possible JVs / takeovers.

BEM isn’t even recognised as a game in town for most investors - look at the pitiful volumes. A positive decision by the government and news of interest by big investors / buyers could change all that .

“Even then it will depend on how the consent is couched, but an mcap of £500m shouldn't be unrealistic”

How do you come to that assessment / valuation? Is that something that will be realised quickly after a positive decision or over a number of years following multiple parts of the jigsaw being put in place?

“lbjj - it only took you five minutes to be proven wrong this morning”

No, it didn’t.

“back in the heady days of March 2011 the closing price hit 62p+. Intra-day, it even touched above 70p. I failed to press the sell button at the time, to my lasting regret. And I'm still here 10 years later”

Can I ask what you bought in at and why you didn’t sell?

“Thor’s words yesterday simply sustain a level of anticipation which, in my opinion, is already priced into the current SP”

I agree. My guess is that much of what is happening right now has already been baked in as anticipation (the SP has more than doubled).

A wide spread and low volumes on the AIM makes many daily movements quite arbitrary. The price might do something before the February date, but I’m not sure how important that is ultimately to the SP following a positive decision. I guess if it moves up aggressively before a decision it will give some people the opportunity to take profit.

It is always difficult to read market sentiment (maybe the market in Sweden is now an easier read), so obviously it is difficult to know how quickly a SP rise would burn out following a positive decision.

Unless the SP does something ridiculous from here, I will still wait for the decision. I won’t weight any great importance on small moves upwards in the meantime.

“There is zero liquidity issues, the tight spread indicates so! It’s reflective of the fact there are as many buyers as there are sellers!”

Where is the sustained tight spread? And the BEM spread isn’t about the buyer-seller symmetry. The spread is reflective of the market makers perceived risk in offering a trade.

BEM does have poor liquidity because volumes are low and inconsistent. Also the market maker has to consider the possibility are sharp moves in SP which could leave them high and dry - a distinct possibility for BEM.

“I watched "Witness" on Al Jeezera tonight, and was disappointed with it, as it was old news and amateurish. It gave the Sami a lot of publicity, and they are probably pleased. I didn't think the local Beowulf spokesman came over very well”

Mining is bad according to the media - beautiful green lands destroyed by big machines - a simple narrative for lazy journalists. They never explain where all your energy and materials come from and what would happen if the supplied stopped. Even the current gas price isn’t as much about supply as it is about the government money tree (according to them). This is what a government has to contend with and what it has to spin.

“If politicians for once can see beyond their often short- term and narrow self-interests, surely they have another card to play here and that is the importance of digging out your own high grade stuff rather than importing it from countries where environmental and other human/ethical standards are rather lax”

It is to what extent you can spin the argument rather than just the actual merit of the argument itself.

Logic can demonstrate that if nearly all environmental impacts are too high, you will never extract your own metals. You can show all kinds of contradictions where in similar circumstances it has been allowed. Ultimately it comes down to the story you can tell in the media and how that plays out politically.

If they can read a document, they will be able to see the benefits of the mine. But are those benefits great enough to override any political risks? One way to deal with this problem is to just not make a decision. Politically, probably the most advantageous choice.

Most investors have been able to see this problem, hence the poor share price performance of BEM. Even with the absence of the Greens and the recent positive political noise, the SP is stuck at a lowly 10p range. For a lot of people the current SP is a tempting price to cash out - decent profit from a share trapped in an appallingly unreliable and inconsistent political quagmire. On the other hand, if the decision is given you could be quite confident the SP will be much higher. A gamble on politics for you like. Most investors prefer a gamble on the drill bit.

“Can you contrast objectively with politically...isn't that subjectively?”

Yes. No.