Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Yes Slick90, I understand your frustration when you see complete nonsense repetitively posted, it's the thing that provokes me into posting also. I hope that SAE survive the next year or two, which will be very tough for them and frustrating for shareholders. I wish you good luck!
") SAE is delighted to announce that MeyGen has secured a non-convertible loan of £2.5m from Scottish Enterprise, which will enable the redeployment of the remaining two turbines at the MeyGen site within the next 12 months. This follows the successful deployment in March 2022 of the AR1500, 1.5MW tidal turbine."
What that RNS does not tell you is that SAE had failed to pay interest due during 2021 to Scottish Enterprise and Crown estates, whose loans are secured on Meygen phase 1A. So Scottish Enterprise (I think it's called) had two choices: call in the receivers for Meygen, which would inevitably finish off SAE I think, or lend more money. The RNS on 1st April said that the loan would enable them to put the first of the remaining two turbines back in the water "during May", ie. within maximum 8 weeks, but we are now in week 16 and nothing happening - lack of cash, imo.
" SAE signs £40m contract for one of UK's largest Battery Storage Projects at Uskmouth
SAE is delighted to announce that it has entered an agreement with Energy Optimisation Solutions and Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners via their portfolio company Uskmouth Energy Storage Limited
£11M initial payment"
We are not told what the "conditions precedent" to the initial £10m payment are, but you would expect it to include agreement for changes to the grid connection and full planning permission for the development of the BESS facility. Nor are we told who is paying for all the work needed to obtain that PP, which is likely to be substantial, costly and time consuming. If all bases are not fully covered when the planning application is submitted there will be further considerable cost and delays. My guess, and that's all it is at this stage, would be that the BESS development will be off the main power station area on things like the PFA tip, the coal stacking area which is usually a big area, or the rail feeder lines area. All of those areas are normally on made ground and contain various contaminants, which are likely to need a decent Ground Investigation, amongst many other information requirements for a successful Planning application. We'll no doubt see when the application is submitted, but I would be surprised if the planning application is fully approved before next May, which is a long wait for cash in the current circumstances. Hope I'm wrong.
As far as the next stage of Meygen is concerned, it's a long way from generating any income and there is the problem of getting the cash to build it first. Phase 1A has not generated enough cash to cover its operating expenses and interest cost, never mind depreciation, in any of the last four years, iirc, which makes raising perhaps £150m for the next phase a tough ask, imo.
By the way, I didn't ever look at the Meygen stuff on companies house, but that would obviously be an interesting extra source of info. The SAE annual report stuff didn't make it easy to relate income to output because the output figures were always stated in the narrative from Chairman / CEO to be "cumulative to date" and that was the date of publication of the AR, rather than the year end the report referred to. A further complication may well be that the Meygen report will include the percentage owned by the Scottish Gov.
munin,
The £67m cost comes from note 10 in the 2017 AR, iirc. it was £62m with £5m additions during the year and they then transferred a section of the cost into a new category presumably because a couple of the turbines had completed procedures for acceptance.
Just in case there are any long term investors here, rather than day traders trying to manipulate prices short term, here is an antidote to some of the ramping drivel that has been filling this board, such as this: “Based on simple maths, the 28MWh when up and running in 2027 will generate annual revenues as follows;
24 hours * 365 days * 28MWh * £178 which equates to £43m per annum. Over a 12 year period, £524m.”
From RNSs and Annual reports, ie. facts.
For the initial phase 1A of Meygen, ie. the 4 no 1.5MW turbines, financial close for the project was announced on 18/9/14, with £51.3 million raised to finance the project. Most of that money came from government grants especially the Scottish gov, who ended up owning 13.5% of the project.
So Atlantis raised £51.3m to build the project, but it cost £67m – cost overrun of 30%.
In an RNS 10/7/17 during the final sign off phase before the 25 year contracted operational phase began, Atlantis said that they expected to achieve capacity factors significantly in excess of 40%.
This was not explained clearly, but must mean either that they expected the turbines to be in the water and in working condition for more than 40% of the time, or that they expected to generate power at more than 40% of the rated turbine capacity.
If the latter, that would mean 1A would generate more than 365*24*6*0.4 = 21GW per year, but the maximum achieved in the 4 years of operational phase so far was 12.5 GW in a year and they averaged 9 GW/year.
Then looking at the financial results:-
Total income from power sales and ROCs over the 4 years was £11.1m.
Losses attributed to this segment of the company were £16.2m
That loss came from:-
Interest cost £8.34m
Dep & Amort £9.94
Operating cost £8.99m
So just considering operating cost without the non cash depreciation charge or the actual cash interest cost the income from the power generated was just half a million per year more than operating cost.
So, my opinion, fwliw, is that SAE, as a company teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, will have one hell of a job raising the cash for the new phase of Meygen, which has to be of the order of £100 – 150m, with a record like this, and I believe that shareholders will take whatever pain is coming.
Surprised it took you that long magmanus!
If you can't answer any points, or show realistic evidence to back up your statements, it's much easier to just pretend you haven't read a factual post which disproves what you have written. But I'll still make the points when you write pure BS.
Magmanus,
you say:
“£10m is due to SAE on initiation and plan- the project has started. - how else can they start with out initial payment. It is contractual. Go check.”
Nonsense as usual. Read the RNS announcement. The £10m payment is conditional on the planning permission award and grid approval for the change. No doubt to achieve Planning there will have to be a site investigation, which takes time, probably there will be objections if the work interferes, or might interfere, with the nature reserve adjacent to the power station, but at the least the Planning application will have work to do to convince the planners that it won’t. Then the application has to be submitted after dealing with all sorts of stuff, objections dealt with and eventually, if all goes well, PP will be granted, probably about March next year, imo. So that might well be when payment is made and in the meantime it is not clear who pays the costs of, for example, a site investigation.
magmanus, I believe slick90 is right, you are either an outright ramper writing stuff you know is nonsense to try to pull in punters and raise the shareprice, or you believe your own drivel and shouldn’t be allowed out on your own.
If you must ramp, try to make it almost believable rather than clearly patent nonsense.
For example, in your first post today, posted at 00.01, you work out the annual power output of the new phase of Meygen due into service in 2027, which has 28MW capacity (presumably 14 number 2MW/hr turbines) as 24*365*28 MW hours which is 245.28 GW.
The existing Meygen turbine array is 4 number 1.5 MW turbines = 6MW capacity, so the next phase is 4.67 times bigger at 28MW capacity.
In 4 years Meygen first phase produced 36 GW hours, ie an average of 9 GW per year with a maximum achieved of 12.5 GW in their best year. Taking that best performance and multiplying by 4.67 would give 58.375 GW per year as a more realistic comparison to your 245.28 GW. So your £43.7m annual income is clearly nonsense.
The other thing you totally ignore in your posts is costs. In the four years reporting the 36GW output mentioned above, the Meygen generation segment actually showed income including ROCs of £11m and losses of £16.2m.
Then you say that the Uskmouth BESS initial £10m payment is due “soon” or “later this year” with complete disregard of the work needed to get planning permission and Grid approval (post just before midnight last night). The announcement suggested that the work on site would take 18 months and would start mid next year, which presumably would be immediately after PP and Grid approval were in place. There was no indication of any costs SAE might have to bear before the payment.
Come on now, they installed the second turbine of the two currently in position (as per the Annual Report dated 29/6/22) in March 22, then on 1st April 22 announce a loan to enable them to complete and install the other two turbines, one in May 22 and one about a year later, but failed to install the one due in May 22 at least until the date of the Annual report 29/6/22, and there has been no news relating to that third turbine since 29/6/22, has there.
There are two turbines in with a combined capacity of 3MWs. On Ist April (April fool's day!) SAE announced that they had a loan to enable them to get the other two turbines completed and installed, with their stated intent to have the third one in during May 22. It had not been installed by end of June.
Wrong magmanus, read the annual report, there were just two turbines in at the end of June, the original one which had not been taken out, and one which was installed in March, despite the loan , provided after the March installation of the second turbine to enable the projected 3rd installation in May and then the fourth one about a year later.
The third turbine is "scheduled for redeployment in May 2022" but had not gone in by the time of the Annual report, at the end of June 22, despite the non convertible loan from Scottish Enterprise which was supposed to enable the redeployment of the last two turbines - cash is desperately short, imo.
When was the third turbine installed then, as the Annual Report released on 29th June says that only two have been installed, and there has been no RNS since indicating that the third has gone in, probably because they don't have enough cash to pay for parts or installation.
Orbital Marine Power, a rival company which has a floating 2MW tidal turbine system working in the Orkneys, just announced an award under the AR4 round, but didn't give details of the size of the award. Nothing from SAE yet!
Scraping the barrel would be a kind way of putting it, imo. The company probably could not pay the £350K approx interest payment, leaving the debt holder with the choice of a promise of even higher interest payments in three months, if lucky, or perhaps taking their chances by putting SAE into administration.
I hope Saga cruises continue to take reasonable precautions against Covid, as it very clearly differentiates them from the mass tourist market, and is reassuring for their older client base.
As a 70+ couple we have been to Italy and Spain in the last two -three months. The Italian flight was first and was crewed by Italians who did their best to keep the almost entirely British passengers masked, despite, for example, one man who took the full 2hrs+ of flight time to consume a bag of crisps, one by one, taking ten minutes to chew and savour each one, to avoid mask wearing. About 50 - 60% mask coverage per passenger hour.
But three weeks ago we flew to Spain. Because of the complete lack of airline mandatory mask requirement, no one other than the Spanish crew were wearing masks in either direction. So, about three hours on the crowded plane, followed by an hour in a six hundred metre long queue at UK passport control, with virtually no masks or spacing in the queue, followed by an hour in an absolutely packed train which was supposed to have six carriages but three were missing - again no masks in sight.
My symptoms started two days after the journey and my partner 4 days, We've each had four vaccinations, partner. Can't imagine many of our fellow travellers on that day had any chance of avoiding covid. Saga, if they are still taking good precautions, should benefit from that difference.
I think the wariness in the city is probably due to the many past big governmental pull backs in previously projected spending on major civil engineering projects, whenever the economy gets into trouble.
This morning's RNS looks significant to me. Nigeria being the most populous country in Africa gives Airtel a good opportunity for growth in their banking operation imo.
You have to wonder why a company which was clearly in financial distress by the end of 2020 then had three out of four of its turbines out of the water for a year, when they were just about the only thing generating cash for the company. The recent RNS suggesting that the other two turbines would be back in the water "within the next twelve months", seems to indicate a serious problem of some sort, ie. they will have been out of the water for two years if it takes another twelve months.
Posted 10th January in response to Strangy83
That was a busy Sunday afternoon in terms of posts. All deserve a response, so I'll respond, from memory at this stage, today.
Firstly, the point about electrical output "bridging" capacity / keeping the lights on etc.
Total electrical consumption for the UK, in 2019 is shown on government websites as 300,000 Gigawatt hours and decreasing over the preceding and recent years. Divide that figure by 365 to get daily usage and again by 24 to get average hourly usage. That gives an approximate average hourly usage of 33 GW. Gas fired generation capacity in the UK, mostly efficient Combined Cycle stuff which gives off less than half the greenhouse gases that coal (and the pellets) do, is approximately 39GW.
I'm not sure what % of the Gas generation capacity was used as I never investigated that thoroughly, but I do recall looking at the online live UK power consumption figures often over recent years and gas didn't seem to be anywhere near full capacity use.
Also, in this context it's worth remembering:-
The approx 25% of power consumption by renewables, of which Solar is obviously extra daylight power at times of most usage.
Schemes like Dinorwic, which used, from memory again, under utilised nuclear or Hydro night time power supply to pump water up a mountain so that it could be released through generators at peak demand times.
Power "storage" by other means such as batteries.
Huge increases in construction of wind and solar, both underway and planned. And, best of all imo, TIDAL.