Member Info for Mike1959

240k sales would spook the market.Not sure of any real reason, other than the world markets being jittery , factually there were 7 trades around midday, values at £10,000 each, which suggests it was London based and which set the jittery tone.

Brace yourselves for Q3 results which will be worse that the previous 2 quarters but remain steadfast that Q4 will be considerably better.

BHSI still up YTD and BDI near a 12 month high!

As said before, this business is incredibly cyclical so ride the current wave up (no pun intended).

The S African 40-42% chrome concentrate price CIF China is $295-305/tonne this week compared to 300-305 last week.

.....is actually the same as last weekend and with the holiday in China last week and rising arrivals I would not be surprised if the next price is down around $5/tonne. Still) looks good long term!

Sotolo,the SAfrican chrome proce CIF China

According to the Tharisa website the Q4 Production Report expected today will now be 17th October and the FY2023 Accounts have been delayed to 4th December.

Hi jansonb, I understand your sentiment and honesty and wish you well.

Yes, very disappointing to see pt below $900, pd below $1300 and au near a 7 month low, fortunately ir is creeping up again.

I agree with Moneyman that this will eventually lead to lower PGM production but there will be a time lag before this really bites.

Keep the faith, with chrome at $300/tonne and the Tharisa PGM basket at $1330 for FY 2024 I roughly calculate that over 70% of the Tharisa mine revenue will come from chrome and PBT will be $140m, on this basis the rough AISC for the Tharisa mine is just $330/PGM oz. At the current Karo PGM basket price , I calculate the Karo project will certainly be loss making, although I would rather not speculate on the exact number until we see more information in the FY 2023 accounts and as we have said before the PGM price could come good in time.

Ilja, I suppose you will need some battery storage to operate 24/7 during the night ( I remember PE has hinted on this) and the 40MW will be maximum rather than average.

....sorry I pressed the send button by mistake!

...vice versa if the 6E will be lower. Suggestions have been made that Karo could reduce costs in other ways.

All told it would be good to hear what contingencies the company has in place.

I agree with you that up to now the management have done fantastically well but now they face their biggest challenge IF the Karo PGM basket price does not recover. For example IF the Tharisa mine continues to make say $100m/year but Karo is losing $25m+/year (it will lose money for the first year or so until the volumes are reached) then what is the plan.

Rylidan, you are right that alot can and will change by 2025. Judgements have to be made and it would be useful to hear what contingency plans have been made. If we find out that the ROM 6e will actually be 3.3 rather than 3.0 g/t then that increases PGM production by 10% for effectively the same cost (or vice versa if the 6E t

Hi Ilja, thanks for your request.

it will be good to see the latest Karo Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserve Statement (which I accept will be in the FY accounts on 30th Nov) to see if the actual production numbers expect to reach (or even beat) the 6E ROM of 3.0 grams/tonne used to calculate the annual production of 190,000 PGM ozs/year and good to know where the resulting concentrates will be sold,(will Karo sell the concentrates in Zim or S Africa) or upgrade into matte or higher.

At current prices what is the expected Karo cash cost, IF the PGM basket remains below say $1300/oz are their any plans to reduce/stop production.

Salene Chrome was moth-balled after not being allowed to export the chrome concentrates out of Zim, with higher chrome prices is there any news to change this.

Hopefully more news on the benefication at Tharisa and confirmation that ROM production in FY 2024 should be back above 5 million tonnes.

I appreciate your help and accept that you might not be able to help with some of these questions.

Krusty/Sam, likewise it is good that TMI has addressed many of the points we have recently brought up. Particularly that fine balance of paying down debt or not selling vessels. Conservative debt management has clearly allowed them to renegotiate the RCF at a reduced margin, although with the current overnight SOFR rate at 5.31% I still expect they are paying nearly 7% interest on this new debt replacement and should allow them to gently ease the vessel disposals. It is clever management that can sell vessels just as vessel prices have started to fall and can then hold and possibly start to rebuy just as vessel prices start to increase again.

Sam, I see Grindrod being registered in Singapore as a posItive rather than a negative. International shipping tax legislation is complex but Singapore has very liberal tax regulations compared to UK and particularly USA (check out the percentage of pretax profit they pay as tax). And I believe the bigger saving would be if Grindrod could delist from the stock markets in US/S Africa and still remain registered in Singapore.

BHSI today closed at the same price as yesterday but hopefully this is a blip and not the end of the recent phenomenal increase!

Rylidan, I agree it is "madness trying to compare us with SLP " but ultimately as private investors isn't that what we are trying to do-compare one potential investment with a myriad of others using whatever tools and knowledge/chatter that we can get hold of.

I respect your views and opinion which are very similar to mine but despite the agreed incredible undervaluation I want to see some questions answered on 11th Oct and particularly 30th Nov before increasing at these levels.

Sotolo, the Q3 production numbers were pretty disappointing and I am expecting Q4 to be the same so that we will fall short on the already reduced targets for the FY of PGM's 158,000 to 167,000 ozs (I expect 153,000) and chrome 1.58-1.67 million tonnes (I expect 1.55m) with ROM production the lowest since 2015, I hope I am wrong.

Despite this I still expect FY PBT $130m, PAT $99m, attributable to shareholders $95m, dividend for H2 2.25-2.5 C/share.

I am open to alternative opinions.

The risk factors at SLP are considerably lower.

Karo will not be fully operational for over 18 months but if the PGM basket does not make a significant recovery then some big decisions will have to be made.

TMI offered to buy all Grindrod shares late last year and needed a minimum 90% acceptance to compulsory buy the total,but only managed to buy 83.23%, 33 institutions now own 1.35% (Barclays is the biggest at 0.49%,) the balance is presumably individuals (the biggest is Ed Buttery who owns 0.10%).

There will be continuing costs incurred with Grindrod listed on Nasdaq and JSE South Africa but at the moment TMI seems happy to let that continue. I suppose at the moment they control 100% of Grindrod and wish to run down their own debt before considering to buy more Grindrod shares on the open market or consider a delisting.

Krusty, I agree there could be say $11m worth of new Grindrod shares in circulation within 2 years although on an arms length basis and possibly at a premium so it is not particularly indirectly dilutive to TMI. Anyhow both TMI/Grindrod would have to be legally very careful to avoid breaching transfer pricing regulations in both US/UK.

Hi Sam, like you I was a little surprised but I take it at face value that it is just continued integration. Somewhat surprised that it is Grindrod doing the acquiring rather than the other way round but Grindrod does have the bigger fleet and it is only the commercial and technical managing parts of the business rather than the vessels themselves or the bigger company. So it is not an inverted takeover by Grindrod and the total $11.75 m value represents only around 3% of the total TMI NAV and so at the agreed prices should not be particularly dilutive for TMI shareholders.

At the end of the day Taylor Maritime Investments Ltd still owns 83%+ of Grindrod Shipping and we have both said in the past that we wants greater integration between the two businesses (hopefully eventually becoming one business).

...on 11th Oct we will get the Q4 Production numbers and Q4 prices and probably the latest cash figure then on 30th Nov the FY Accounts.

The further debt reduction indicated by the CEO will probably follow after the cash distribution from Grindrod Shipping on 30th October when TMI will receive around $37 million (but no further Grindrod dividend this year and I suppose it does help to dilute the minority value in Grindrod).

BHSI closed up 1.53% at 662 today, a new high for this year to date. Still lagging behind the BDI which was up 3.8% today or over 10% YTD.

GoOod to see no red/sells today!

Sotolo, I fully agree that the future PE is a very guessed metric. With 2 weeks of the current financial year to go using the last low PGM price of $1266 and chrome of $297.5 I am expecting 2023 Profit Before Tax of 97m. Then for 2024 using the same prices around $100m. 2024 looks highly variable as you point out due to the performance of Karo (but don't forget we only pay for 70% of the costs) .

Again I agree that PGM demand is still highly reliant in ICE sales but I still expect them to have a long tail and you are not even allowing for any positive pickup from PEM hydrogen technology that will certainly benefit platinum and iridium (nice car by the way-enjoy) .

Yes, we are highly dependent on chrome but I think the structural benefits of stainless steel are here to stay so i see that as a positive rather than a negative.

Yes, great management but the Karo timing looks like going against them buy again that could completely change around and the Karo production model might have to be scaled back which could reduce the life of mine. A sign of that great management will be how they deal with these issues going forward.

By the way I was disappointed with the reported Tharisa PGM basket price reduction on Monday with lower platinum, rhodium, ruthenium and iridium prices while Johnson Matthey had the platinum price down they showed absolutely no change in the same period?

Gonsan/Sam, BHSI up 3.65% today to 624 and considering where we got to, now just 5.88% down YTD. BDI up 3.9% today to 1290 and now up 4.45% YTD. The Sunday credit information and inflation figures on China were surprisingly positive.

Good question, is the dividend safe? Operating performance has been close to breakeven and the NAV dropped in both previous quarters. Up to now the Board has been very supportive of the dividend and certainly expressed this, but if squarterly operating losses had continued and NAV continued to fall then they would have eventually has to cut the dividend. Despite the recent massive recovery in the BHSI, because of the low levels it got to in July/early August, the average BHSI for this quarter is likely to be around say 482 which is 17% lower than Q2. Don't forget that Grindrod has a big agreed pay-out coming out and then no more dividends this year. Fortunately I think the massive recent BHSI rise will give the board confidence to leave the dividend as it is to the end of this year at least.

The Indices now seem to have reached an inflection point where the daily buys considerably outweigh the sells which if continued should see the share price back into the mid-70's (p) . So we should still expect a tough Q3 but a considerably better Q4. it is possible that the big jump in the indices actually turns expected vessel depreciation into vessel increases which would increase the NAV more than I am suggesting.