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I hope I have followed what I’m suggesting AudibleEnergy, but if I do not then please do call me out in future. None of us are perfect and robust but fair discussion is in everyone’s interests.

As to asking me to name who you have abused, it’s not really for me to say but all the tory councillor accusations, telling testpack to do some charity work in a mental health ward (17 Aug 2021 17:02) and a very strongly worded message towards MrJinx (16 Aug 2021 22:42), to me, go further than needed for financial analysis. However, I say that only to respond to and answer your quite fair question - looking forward is far more positive and what we all agree on.

Onward towards production, as you have said, and hopefully some good insight tomorrow evening!

24 hours until hopefully a very interesting presentation.

Specially watching out for news on the provisionally up to £30m remaining equity needed, upsides of the current raise and where that takes us beyond cashflow (i.e. what doors or connections it opens) and any further involvement from OCP.

The investors are highly experienced in their markets. We have a very good story to tell in Emmerson and it will be interesting to hear how Graham weaves those together.

OnlyOneShareMe and AudibleEnergy, you have a lot of old chat to give out.

You also had a lot to say when the ESIA “wasn’t delayed” and abused anyone who said otherwise.

Yet here we are:

- There was a delay in the way that AudibleEnergy said there would not be because the water sought further data.

AudibleEnergy (22 July 17:20): “Are no delays, we are sat here awaiting government to arrange a meeting. […] No one is hiding data ready to spring upon the company to say Aha! got you! You missed this!”

- We weren’t informed of the material change to the ESIA cost and timeline of being asked to produce an additional study in the way that OnlyOneShareMe you robustly asserted that we would, instead we found out only retrospectively.

OnlyOneShareMe (07 Sep 2021 15:39): “Imminent or not at least Graham has re-iterated that Emmerson would be legally bound to report any material change, be it progress or a blocker.”

History shows that you two don’t have 2020 vision into the future. Its not that Chisler is right or you’re wrong, but no one has a crystal ball.

If we can let people express their understanding freely, without abuse, and keep with the facts (or accept there are none, rather than forcefully assume) then I think and hope that in return you will see green shoots of a wider conversation returning, with more voices and this board will be a richer place for it.

In sum, please ease off on bullying because it’s closing down the diversity of views in this forum, which is to everyones disadvantage.

@bluepalace - where are you seeing debt equity split in the RNS?

“Hayden has also hinted that a project with such strong fundamentals should attract a 30%-70% equity to debt split. The news today suggests this is where we are heading”

I thought they sounded a bit worried, to be honest.

Funding seems 3-6 mths back from target and the low share price can’t help the debt and strategic partner negotiations.

Should the share price be higher? Yes, I think it should be higher.

I haven’t seen capital raise rumours but, to me, the greater drag is:

1) the ESIA handling, as it doesn’t sound like there was huge jeopardy, the untransparent handling damages confidence; and

2) sadly and perhaps for good reasons, absent delivery against promised timelines (even if there is promise ahead, not either hitting self set milestones or re-managing expectations damages confidence as to when that might be).

I’m not saying that these things are weighing overly on my perception but I do think they’re relevant to someone outside.

I was interested that the strategic partner discussion is 18 months in. I would expect it to take more than 12 months, but 22-24 months to signing also sounds toppy in the other direction for such a distinctive and low capex project. Maybe it’s Emmerson holding it for a high price. Who knows.

Does anyone have an experienced view on a typical time range for signing a strategic partnership of this kind and stage to measure against?

It’s all a bit chicken and egg, I can empathise with their frustration to get funded and going!

I agree with the realists here. We and a delay, it wasn’t (only) a covid delay and it wasn’t stated.

For a holder, the RNS is still great news and relief that the project isn’t about to tank. In all seriousness, we have to accept that what we have invested in so far is a field and some employees; there is no mine, yet, and things can go wrong or there wouldn’t be high rewards to come. If the government chose to refuse the ESIA then we would be left with a very expensive field and a plummeting share price, so unlikely as that is or was its good to know that things appear to be running ok.

In terms of trust, I don’t think it was played as well as it could have been. It’s arguable that for someone investing on a 1 year timeline that the new information was material to their transactional decisions. And while its human nature to want to solve before giving bad news, it wasn’t the right use case for that because the delay was outside the company’s control. A short sharp RNS when the request came in would have avoided the worries (and the infighting on this board, not that that is a company priority! Ha ha).

For a prospective investor the RNS is a beautifully worded moving of goal posts:

Was Now
**** ****
ESIA Q3 —> No date
Funding Q3 —> (Q4/Q1?)
Build Q4 —> No date

The share price drop indicates that the market did consider the change of circumstance material to price - can’t get any better illustration - and fair play.

Good news for people here is that the fundamentals remain good. Timetables will no doubt change again as is the reality of any project and I hope the company will be transparent when that happens next and nip it in the bud.

Makes, if you only want to hear your own views, you don’t need to visit the board - you already hold those views.

If you want to visit the board to share your views and to discourage views that are unfavourable to the share price then, to many people, that is a variation on ramping.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think you are ramping. You have brought a lot of value to the board.

What we are, or I at least am, saying is that a plurality of views is a richer discussion. So long as we remain in the realms of truth, views that may be difficult for EML to hear can still be not unhelpful. We are investors and supporters but not cheerleaders.

No material update has come for months. You have comfort from your correspondence with Graham. Others don’t have that and are worried and that’s okay even if you guys aren’t worried.

Everyone can have opinions - saying that someone is on drugs or making monkey comments because they don’t share your opinion is just not appropriate; this section is entitled ‘share discussion’.

Comparisons with Horizonte and Chisler reminding of Hayden’s previous hope to have raised finance already show historic time investment and market knowledge.

While you may not agree with the conclusions draw, both are quite reasonable evidenced based views for anyone to hold, or share for discussion.

Save for anything insulting, it is also a shame that Chisler’s post on Hayden’s earlier timeline has been reported and removed; the point of evidence is both valuable for people to know in terms of wider awareness and pattern matching that companies do need to change timelines and the whole approach of reporting forecloses discussion. If the post was inappropriate then it should be reported for other reasons but that’s another point.

Audible and Makes, please ease off so that we can have an open discussion with a multitude of views.

Makes, your posts of the emails appear to me to be true but misleading by omission because you do not state each time that the e-mail you are showing is from your post on 18 Aug 2021 14:37 - that’s all.

Jinx, I think, asked for you to include a timestamp. If you do that, people can be clear on what they are reading and there will be no misleading implication that it’s a live statement as at the time of re-posting.

Yes, it’s the difference between past good communication and radio silence that is conspicuous.

Hopefully for positive end reasons.

Were EML to have commercial discussions with the Moroccan government or OCP, it crossed my mind that delaying the ESIA approval could be used to effectively lock out other parties, who would typically require the ESIA as a condition precedent to signing any competing deal.

Complete speculation and unlikely, as it would be an abuse of power, but something has to be up with this delay if they confidently expected 1-2 months from April. It’s astonishing that we have been in the dark for so long as to even conjure up such ideas!

I think the difficulty here is that, while these processes are undeniably bureaucratic, Graeme was “very confident”, verging on categoric that it would be done in Q2 a few months back and happy to say on lots of road shows.

Now its in its second month ‘late’ (if only by the timetable that he created) and there is dead public silence about it. The contrast is the problem.

What I’d like to know is, what gave Graham grounds to say that he was “very confident” (or similar) that the permit would be complete in H1; at one point he seemed to be saying that it would be out ‘any day’ and now what is different in practice that it has not happened.

The claims were self made and during Covid times already so should have that baked in - what has changed or was it just a wild assertion (seems less likely). Also no road shows, etc. after a spate (I agree those were overdone but I think there is a narrative to add here if they want anyone to buy in ahead of the permit being granted).

Excuse the typos below, ideally the RNS would tell us some of these specifics to avoid the speculation.

Initially, I thought the new NED appointment suggested a problem with the permit, because you only get a NED to fix a problem and he doesn’t have typical commercial experience, so is clearly there for regulatory engagement.

Since then, I’ve been thinking that seems less likely - they’re at the latter half (at least) of the process and to bring someone on as a long term NED, rather than hiring an advisor or lobbyist, for example, seems a little late and too great a commitment just to close out the application.

If OCP is quasi-governmental, I wonder more so of the new recruit is in lend his experience to help to broker that deal (and others in the generality).

The timeline seems a better match. Thoughts only.

I don’t have a strong opinion about this either way.

However, if we are to turn on the words, the tweet said more than “imminent“:

“ Emmerson now awaiting final approval to be called for the evaluation meeting by the EEC, expected to be received imminently, *subject to COVID restrictions in Morocco*.”

“Subject to COVID restrictions in Morocco” is the key language, not the word “imminently” - we can’t reasonably take “imminently” literally if they immediately follow it with a condition that is outside their control.

What I do think that they have done is over promised and under-communicated, and that’s disappointing even if the reason for the delay is very reasonable.

We do know that 1) there has been a restriction on government meetings (explaining some delay), and 2) that has been removed now. What I don’t think that we can sensibly assume is that EML has the first deli counter ticket in line for a meeting after restrictions were lifted; its realistic to expect there will be a backlog.

As such, it would be a great help if Emmerson were to announce something by way of assurance - any times diarised (is it even in the diary?) - and to confirm that they have no new information that changes their expectation of a rubber stamp when the meeting happens (this really is the crux of it).

The tweet was unhelpful because it sent off smoke when there was seemingly no fire. An update is timely now because the old assurances are stale in time and silence rarely helps.

But I’m not going to spin my wheels too much on the word “imminently”. If the permit is a rubber stamp and investment will be a fast follower then everything is fine and we just need to hear it.

An RNS that a strategic partnership has been signed conditional on permit would be a good way to go.

The five minute pitch plans main debt funding for Q3 2021.

I can’t find a reference in the recent RNS statements but I had thought that Q1 2021 was the funding timeline.

If you know off the top of your head, please say and I can keep looking back otherwise. Is this a time-shift in the core funding timeline?

- Creditors passed a resolution on 18 April to put Cradle Arc Plc into liquidation by tomorrow (30 April)

- Last Friday, 26 April, a creditors or liquidators committee was formed to set the liquidators fees and give creditors a voice in the process

Baring a miracle, this is telling me that the Fujax play to cashflow the mine back into profit didn't work. Liquidation legally ends or ‘winds up’ a limited company, meaning that it will be removed (‘struck off’) from the register at Companies House and ceases to exist, along with any shares. [See 2 below]

Here's the filing history:

[1] beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05315922/filing-history

[2] gov.uk/government/publications/options-when-a-company-is-insolvent/options-when-a-company-is-insolvent

https://

Goes without saying that I'd expect that they would have tried to get deals done and an new NOMAD appointed before today to keep liquidity

Not to say that this is going anywhere but the irony is that, if I understand right, no one has yet suffered a loss that you can put on a tax return.

Delisting takes the shares off the exchange but the otherwise they continue as is. Cradle Arc and Leboam have insolvency protection so, the 'fat lady' (or at least one of them) is the provisional liquidator. If per ZCI's Euronext press release/ RNS , Fujax wants to fund the mine into profitability and the provisional liquidator gets creditor approval for that then it would all continue off-market. At some point it would relist and people would get an unexpected rebate (I'm not saying that any of this will happen).

If the provisional liquidator can't get agreement then the companies or assets would presumably be sole and shares cancelled / companies dissolved - only at that point would the money be 'lost' and can go on a tax return.

In the meantime, I don't know how anyone would get reports other than from the ZCI news feed. If the provisional liquidator is acting for creditors and 'members' / sharesholders, then you might think there would be a way to know but I haven't seen a way that you can otherwise fully close out on this.