Member Info for Ideas

Consider it how you like, the best analogy I think is appeal from a Planning Committee to the Secretary of State, which is the end of the line unless you go for judicial review on some grounds of procedural impropriety but, on which judicial review, they can't consider and substitute the decision itself but only how it was made and ask for it to be made again if it was come to by some procedurally improper means.

I'm comfortable in my view because last week I translated and summarised the local law, which I posted, covering how it works as an appeal.

Below is an extract from the press release of another ministerial steering meeting of the kind we are awaiting:

"This meeting was devoted to [stuff], in addition to reviewing appeals filed by investors regarding CRUI decisions."

[they did the stuff, then...]

"Subsequently, the members of the commission examined a series of appeals against the negative decisions issued by the CRUIs, and ruled on them in accordance with the legal provisions in force."

CRUIs are 'Unified Regional Investment Commissions' (i.e. who applied to in Rabat). However we describe it, our 'referral' will be one of those appeals.

You can read for yourself by putting the link into Google Translate: https://www.cg.gov.ma/fr/node/10006

I don't personally see this as a magistrates court (implying low down). Firstly, it's not in the courts at all and, secondly, within the political system it's chaired by Morocco's Head of Government, so no higher to go.

You may have done your own review of local law and found different information. Let us have the references please if you have so that we can all benefit.

Yes, in the same way a High Court decision is referred to the Court of Appeal

We’re in an appeal process right now RLL93, awaiting the decision

How many million gallons a year are we talking from that? : )

Makes (Lloyd?), Tim Blythe is Emmerson's employed crisis PR.

Asking Tim if everything is going well would be like asking Rudy Guiliani if Trump won the last election. Testpack is rightly I asking the company, I assume, because it's the community that we are shareholders in and only statements from company that can be properly relied upon. If the company wants to go to Tim Blythe to script their response, that's a separate thing but they still hold the can for sending the response.

Asking Tim Blythe directly has no accountability and he has a duty to the company so cannot reveal anything.

Not to say anyone shouldn't email Tim Blythe but just need to be aware that it's pub chat, with someone who isn't telling you everything, at its very best he can offer.

On your second point that if they refuse the application it's not a refusal; agree they can make another application but a refusal of this application would be a refusal of the application, moreover it took two years for this application to reach the committee, so is not necessarily an instant affair - its clarity over smoke and mirrors that we need now, IMO only.

I think it’s likely wrong that we haven’t been given more information to be able to make an investment decision - the prospectus risk register says this is a low risk area and hasn’t been updated with the challenges, options and proposed solutions, nor any measure of the likelihood of success.

That Graham is ‘confident’ may we’ll be but that isn’t an investment term.

First thoughts are that they already have, woolverstone. If it was a bite your hand off scenario, we wouldn't be here.

I think we will be expected to meet whatever 'norms' exist and we should have the advisory team to reveal those expectations, after which it's up to Graham and the Board to deliver.

If... the next week or so brings approval, I expect market markers will simply open at 6-8p and swallow the 4-6p per share and then sell off any surplus at the peak (triggering what is technically known as 'new Porsche time').

Nice line of work when it works!

We can’t dig to find water because a key feature of the project is that there’s no aquifer (diagram below)

https://emmersonplc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Khemisset-infographic_Sep2020_New-Colours_V5-07-1-1024x564.jpg

You'd imagine EML could ask for zero water and ship it in for approval but there will come a point at which the business case doesn't work.

A deferred payment to source water from OCP's desalination effort would be new water but OCP might not want the delay (if any) before we can pay and it might not want or be able to share if its already sold its capacity.

Last month, the Head of Government Aziz Akhannouch, who I understand needs to approve for us, signed a memorandum of understanding with OCP for it to provide desalination for both two whole municipalities and industrial use, so it's operating on a massive scale now - what's the slack for us, is the question:

"As part of OCP's "water neutrality" strategy, it seeks to promote the use of green energies. It also seeks to use exclusively non-conventional water for its industrial operations."

Our waste water plan is non-conventional but do we need to be 'water neutral'; it's a lot of ask of a pre-revenue SME.

EML must feel the Head of Government, Aziz Akhannouch, can see that.

OCP Source: https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2023/07/356314/ocp-committed-to-help-improve-morocco-s-water-management

I suppose there are a few possibilities.

I'm not sure if EML can enhance its application within an 'appeal', as its effectively a new application, the Ministerial Steering Group might view the obstacles differently (i.e. that its manageable), or it might accept the challenges and impose conditions that might be satisfied before the mine opens - this could be fine for funding if they're clear and it's within EMLs sole control to deliver them or another cycle of uncertainty if they are murky but would I think still give a lot of confidence.

I was looking more for around 8-15p personally ha ha

1/2

Sharing my ESIA research:

Moroccan Law 47-18 covers ESIA approvals and governs the Regional Investment Centre that EML is currently appealing from.

- the Regional Commission meets weekly (article 34);

- no one with a conflict of interest can be on the panel (art 32);

- members are bound to absolute secrecy about how decisions are made (art 35), so not great for transparency;

- it has to reach a decision within 30 days of a project file being submitted by the Centre Director (art 34), so we might infer that the Centre Director didn't want to submit it or dragged heels until circa 2 months ago (you might imagine why Graham couldn't say the latter and perhaps that explains his RNS saying that he didn't know why it wasn't going in);

- decisions are taking by majority and by the Chairman if there is a tie (art 34), who may be a guy called Rachid El Abdi, who appears to be a significant figure in the Moroccan legislature but I don't know;

- breaking off for a moment, I saw a 2021 gov press release saying that in the year to 2021 the Rabat Investment Commission approved around 60% of applications, so a knock back doesn't sound too unusual (but doesn't either mean appeal will solve things (source: https://www.cg.gov.ma/fr/node/10006);

2/2

- based on the same press release, the people in the ministerial appeals group were (then) the head of gov, minister of tourism, handicrafts, air transport and social economy, minister for energy mines and the environment, minister delegate to the minister of the Interior, the secretaries general and representatives of the ministerial departments that are members to the Rabat commission itself, so still a lot of people, but who knows who really has a say - probably not all of those!;

- EML had 10 days to launch its appeal to the ministerial steering committee (art 37), so we might infer that the decision was not more than 10 days earlier than the RNS;

- the ministerial steering committee must rule within 30 days and is a legal requirement, according to the published copy I have (art 37), - that's the big one I was looking for (caveat, it could be interpreted as 30 working days and they could have scheduled terms and holidays that could cut across).

- the permanent secretariat of the Regional Commission organises the agenda (art 39), so that person too could be a point of delay up to now and hard for EML to criticise;

You should verify all or any of this yourself and not rely directly on it. My process was to download the statue from https://www.rabatinvest.ma/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Loi47.18-FR.pdf and copy that into https://www.deepl.com/translator/files

Hope this helps and fills in some gaps!

Moving on small volumes, that's +14% reported on £20k net buys (except any unreported).

At the 6p range I feel as though that would have moved the share a few basis points, if at all.

I think he’s saying it’s not yes or no in the sense that you can keep applying - you can keep applying for planning permission forever until it’s approved, for example; you just need to be able to pay for all those iterations.

Graham needs to add that while it’s not a go / no go for the project because he can have another go, he has had two years to jiggle things around already.

He’s fine if the local refusal is nimby and the government looks past that, but only he knows.

Agree, a government or government controlled investment would clear the issue.

Any situation in which everyone’s incentives are aligned will make it go ahead cleanly.

Agree with testpack, the mining licence is completely separate. The mining authority is happy to approve the project; okay, that’s just one stakeholder and one party of the puzzle.

Not commenting on probability of success but the mining authority being okay Ford not mean that the water, planning or any other authority will be okay because they’re all approving their own matters.

Ask your mortgage advisor if you can put solar panels on the roof and they’ll say, “Go for it!”, but they’ll only advise you on the mortgage.

I think it was a clear no because the Regional Investment Centres are a form of regional devolution intended increase speed of investment through regional one stop shops and sweep away bureaucracy (i.e. the purpose is to empower local decision making).

That said, I think the RNS is true, but misleading, to say that they were ‘unable’ to approve the project.

I believe that what they mean is that EML were ‘unable’ to gain the support of enough of the panel members to pass the approval; there are a lot of members too, perhaps more than 20, so I can imagine that could be a public affairs job in itself.

You can see the structure at:

https://www.rabatinvest.ma/qui-sommes-nouss/#1674049427009-ca949b61-4a90

You’ve ever been to a UK planning committee meeting, that’s how I’m imagining it.

People clearly should do their own research - FYI. This is a discussion board and I can’t unilaterally say there will be a ruling next week!