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I started to wonder if it might be a PR piece, Graham told them off record, Zawya contacted the Hespress journo who told them and they printed but really its all a bit tenuous to be spending time on and we just need a clear message. You couldn’t place weight on it, but nice idea to be hearing.

Yes, the UK version of the quoted media source says nothing of ministry sources.

Either there's a misquote or the article was alleged after publication. Hespress quotes emmerson as its source so that's all a bit circular and might be a PR piece.

https://en.hespress.com/62323-potash-production-project-in-khemisset-close-to-obtaining-environmental-approval.html

Just want to highlight Dofmeister's understated post. Only media, but a local Arabic paper is quoting a source in the "Energy and Sustainable Development Ministry [as saying that the Ministry will soon] will soon issue an environment permit for the Khemmiset] project, which will be executed by the UK-headquartered Emmerson Company, the Arabic language daily Hespress said."

Zawya is a London Stock Exchange group title, can't take any incremental trust from that but these are notably good sounds. If the source is reliable, you might have to buy the whole ~900k shares back soon Matador!

https://www.zawya.com/en/projects/industry/morocco-set-to-launch-potash-project-report-kfjcyhgo

Thanks for the share Dofmeister and fingers crossed it’s not a paid PR piece and just as good news for Graham.

“Subject to the approval of the environmental proposals, the next phase with regard to the technical work will be to update the 2020 Feasibility Study to reflect all design changes, including an updated mine plan and set of financial estimates, which will also incorporate some of the cost inflation that has been seen in the intervening period. An updated Bankable Feasibility Study ("BFS") will then be completed, which will be reviewed by the technical and due diligence teams of the banks and other financiers of the project, ahead of the conclusion of the fundraise for construction ("Financial Close").
 
The timing of Financial Close will clearly depend above all on the environmental approval, and on that basis is unlikely to be sooner than Q4 2023.”

Source: 2022 Financial Results and Q1 Update, 13 April 2023

I think it shows frustration and a little embarrassment and humility Westie.

The penultimate paragraph of Graham's recent piece "It's not all about tomatoes in winter" summarised:

"But there's an issue here. Potash production from safe, reliable jurisdictions like Morocco needs to be supported by governments and capital markets."

That the company chose to pay for a full page Emmerson branded lobbying ad in the last week, may suggest that's the nub of the problem; notwithstanding Rupert and the meetings they describe, they're not getting adequate time and cut through with decision makers, or are drowning in bureaucracy.

Good news that the company says that it has sufficient funds to carry out its non-discretionary activities for the next 12 months, which I assume is pay tax, wages and other contractual commitments (only). The question it begs is as to when the delay affects discretionary activities and what they consider 'discretionary'. Lobbying ads are clearly discretionary but looks it was felt it was needed. Who is it they can’t get to and are relying on them reading a newspaper ad when we’re already in meetings?

It looks like most other workstreams are now ready for next steps and backed up waiting on the ESIA.

Answers I'd welcome:

- OCP plans a large % increase in potash derivative products in the next two years but hasn't publicly touched this project and has according to Graham historically rebuffed it; why is that?

- Morocco would gain all the benefits listed here before but in a world potash shortage and economic dip hasn't ceased this opportunity and found a way to issue the ESIA (e.g. using conditions that can be fulfilled after grant and before the mine may become operational, as is routine in planning consents). Why is that?

- Why are the various studies, designs and plans due from contractors that are within our control in Q3/Q4 last year a) outstanding, and b) moreso, without explanation.

- how are all these overruns affecting our financial burn rate, likewise interest rates on our debt finance in general terms?

All of these things may be in great internal shape. For example, the funding syndicate shows real progress. However, Graham's job is both to deliver according to his plans (for whatever reason, not currently happening) AND to engage with the market and manage its expectations; that's not happening either. I don’t agree A2D’s point that the company must save it all up; it can show us things are okay with regular updates and still save the marketing push.

Case in point, Graham allowed the Midas column lady to come away understanding that the ESIA would be out that quarter (i.e. imminently), when evidently it wasn't the case.

Everyone misses deadlines but when it's routine, you have set the timelines and passes silently, reasonable people can get that gut instinct and sinking feeling (and I do think this is more than doldrums between News, because the project is around two years late with rising spend and no income); that has to be taken into context and maybe communicate more than if things were on time and budget.

Projects that 'should work' do go under on funding and, while making no crystal ball claims myself, I don't think it's only stop losses triggering sales at the moment or the bickering here, with runs inverse to news flow.

However good on paper, things are moving closer to 50/50 all or nothing now because the ESIA is make or break. For new joiners, I'd expect the information vacuum makes it hard to invest and more of a bet.

I hope Graham can step up this next week and communicate to help avoid people drawing their own inferences.

Matador: tend to agree with your last post and frankness.

Thanks for sharing Testpack.

Totally normal human response that Graham won't want to get grilled with nothing to say.

In a professional project management context, however, it's quite a different thing if you skip milestone meetings and updates.

My inference is that:

- they're on the cusp;

- the process is so opaque that they don't really know playing rules and can't plan effectively; or

- they do know the playing rules and clear asks and they're so challenging that they don't want to say out loud until they've been able to over come them.

In both of the latter, the process is outside their reasonable control.

Hard to judge if they're making the efforts and attaining at the level that we would expect if we understood the full context. Certainly the wage bill has grown a lot, so will be important that full time staff are fully applied.

DShox makes a great point that EML is convincing people outside the ESIA log jam - investors, offtake finance. Though again we’ve paid for the investment, off-take is quite reasonably not yet binding and the banking syndicate may have cost us fees and as such been a paid for service as much as anything. We’re an RNS or two away from greatness.

I expect this will be a waiting rather than progress quarter and perhaps slight share price walk down.

If there is no ESIA by H1 in line with the company sanctioned investor note from Liberem, that’s when the pressure will really start to ramp.

Hoping the business will RNS in the next two weeks and be seen to be keeping it’s promises:

- Mine design is past due. If they can’t release, telling us what’s happening will still be valuable in showing progress (e.g., can’t finalise because ESIA discussions affect design would be logical);

- People here have mentioned a commitment to an ‘Investor Meets’ type Q&A, which I haven’t seen committed but would again be helpful, including to address any changes in the debt market with the Silicon Valley Bank fall out.

We don’t need to worry too much about the current share price being impacted by wider headwinds but some uncertainty will come if there’s ongoing quiet with the project running two years late of EML’s own market guidance. Having bought land designated for a potash mine. If not now, when ever?! The parallel between organising a drink party in brewery and organising a potash mine in a world potash shortage would come to mind!

All the foundations are in place. Being seen to level with people on what’s (reliably) next and open up a bit will help greatly, I think.

Everyone will understand the timelines are elastic if the right transparency is provided.

Source
*******
Emmerson CEO Graham Clarke aims for Moroccan potash mine to be in construction by year-end (2021)

https://www.lse.co.uk/media/EML/emmerson-ceo-graham-clarke-aims-for-moroccan-potash-mine-to-be-in-construction-by-year-end.html

25 March 2021

RNS was comfortably vague:

"I am confident we will be able to provide some substantive updates over the course of Q1, and that 2023 will be a transformative year for Emmerson."

**substantive updates over the course of Q1**

- the mine design is overdue from November and reasonably within the company's influence.

- with the bank syndicate, he can arguably say the box is ticked.

**2023 will be a transformative year**

- Allows 12 months for the ESIA.

Lots of wiggle room.

Agree with UncleJohn.

Timelines seem all over the place and missed even where independent of ESIA dependencies (the ESIA drive may have been all consuming of Graham’s time). Yet, the RNS does portray a belief that this will happen. I’m also pleased that some of the gloss has come off and there is more express acknowledgment of the challenge.

The main things that I would say we don’t know are the hit to cash reserves of 1) the ESIA wait and 2) of any additional water requirements as against what was in plan.

Thoughts here based on my reading of the ESIA discussion being as per below:

"During Q4, a considerable amount of work went into progressing discussions with regard to the environmental approval of the Khemisset Project, for which I am grateful to my team and the Moroccan authorities."

= we were a long way off, further off than I had realised when I said "imminent"

"Our proposals (including specific revisions) are robust and I am cautiously optimistic they will be accepted, but the timing of approvals is in the hands of the Moroccan authorities. We appreciate the patience of our shareholders and are committed to doing everything that is needed to get this over the line."

= having first shared our discussions with the water authority by RNS 15 months ago on 30 September 2021, the pace of decision making is realistically beyond our control and the imbalance of power means that we may still be quite some time off in timeframes

"I am confident we will be able to provide some substantive updates over the course of Q1, and that 2023 will be a transformative year for Emmerson."

= surely…, 12 months should do it for the permit.

Replacing broken second link in post below:

https://twitter.com/Emmerson_Potash/status/1596075869315158016

Nearly every time they share price goes down, you post on Twitter that it has gone up "after the closing auctions", "(as shown on Sharepad)".

Forgive me for mentioning, but I've noticed the same pattern for a while and because today you say that the share price has gone up 3.9%, when it has gone down -6.36%, which is over 10% between those two numbers, it’s quite misleading.

https://twitter.com/Emmerson_Potash/status/1605248701823426565

I assume you're adding "(as shown on Sharepad)" because you can't quite see why Sharepad and the London Stock Exchange report different numbers.

With no intent to teach you to suck eggs, as you say that you have many years of trading experience (https://twitter.com/Emmerson_Potash/status/1596075869315158016):

Sharepad lays itself out quite poorly but says on your screen:

Open 5.5
Close 5.15

The difference is -0.35 and that makes -6.36% for today, which is entirely consistent with the London Stock Exchange numbers reported on this site. The share price has gone down.

The number that you are quoting as going up is the spread between the buy and sell prices, which has gone up by 3.9%.

Greatest concern is money / runway.

We’re fully funded for whatever we are funded for, based on set of assumptions.

The Feb 21 RNS below “anticipated initiation of construction by the end of 2021.”

As we’re a year on, there will be unanticipated costs (some things we will have been able to do but initiation of construction we have not been able to do).

Beyond construction, the Company by RNS said it expected to complete the basic engineering phase and land acquisition plan by October 2022 [see FN1]; we haven’t seen those.

You might link these with the ESIA but we haven’t heard that from the company. Though there may be good reasons, we haven’t had an RNS to explain the miss against expectation, new timing and they weren’t conditional on ESIA in the RNS.

It’s just a question of fact as to how much slippage (and therefore additional cost affordance) is in the numbers and I don’t think that I’ve seen anything on that.

“What was our runway and where are we against that?” is the question, that aside we can sit and wait.

[FN1] Source: RNS, 31 May 2022

https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/EML/audited-results-for-the-year-ended-31-dec-2021-woy0uw8rmy0mf86.html

Agree Jinx

19yrs is the estimated mine life before the originally mapped resource expires.

Mining licence goes for 10-years from Feb 2021, renewable in 10-yr increments.

(Source: RNS, 9th Feb 2021)

https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/EML/mining-licence-approved-for-the-khemisset-project-jf83469z912j0zs.html

We can only wait and see! GLA & good weekends.

Thanks for the good posts by all others below.

First line typo below: “please do note”

Thanks Westie, please do more that that I haven’t commented on any delay myself. And no wish to ignite a flame war. Agree it’s ongoing as best we know.

I'm simply saying that to say the opposite, that there's definitely and expressly *no* delay:

- two years on;

- in a world potash crisis with local aims to quadruple supply (i.e. conceivable possibility for acceleration); and

- with none of us having sight of any of the process or paper work

is perhaps be putting it a bit strong in the other direction.

I say that because I took to be as if to say 'there can be no cause for concern' - maybe a misunderstanding.

I think the balanced view is well made by others:

"I agree that there's clearly an issue with the ESIA, I just don't have an opinion on if it's bureaucracy or something more serious. I used to think the former, the longer this drags on I fear it may be the latter."

a_sceptic (7 Recommends)

"these approvals have been taking longer than we had originally anticipated"

Graham Clarke, RNS dated Mon, 26th Sep 2022

And implicitly we're all looking for some risk by getting in early. If there was no / zero risk, the shareholders register would be packed with pension funds and we wouldn't all be eyeing x10!

30 Sep 21 - "ESIA submission has progressed towards the final assessment stage and the Company has provided all information that had been requested by the Moroccan authorities"

I don’t deny that it’s an ongoing process but we have believed that we were in the final stage before and so I think it’s very technical approach to say that there is literally no delay, of any kind.

Doesn’t take from your point whenever the final final stage is.

On the share price, perhaps too much was read into latest published presentation.

No doubt, the project is advanced but my sense is that this is just a tactical update; they're pitching, they know that they'll get grilled on the ESIA, so it makes sense to say something about it (as best they can).

We heard similar five quarters ago:

"ESIA submission has progressed towards the final assessment stage and the Company has provided all information that had been requested by the Moroccan authorities"

(Source: RNS dated 30 Sep 21)

Suggests some pre-deal activity but I'm not taking any more than that from it.