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Yes, great point Miss_Dollar. I suspect the answer is a mixture of both plus political interference.

The BoE appears to have woefully under-estimated inflation as ‘transitory’ and is now caught in a bind of its own making. Meanwhile it’s drift under Carney into politics (recall his anti Brexit exhortations and climate obsessions) began disrupting its focus.

Bailey appears too weak a character to re-assert true independence and focus on inflation. I expect therefore to see inadequate and belated small rate rises until the Bank’s hand is forced (which itself could be through political pressure).

Great observation Spindler. Poly suffers from operating in Russia, the heavy Russian ownership, and the perceived geo-political risk associated with Russia - all of which are baked into the price.

Personally I see this as an opportunity to take advantage of the West’s myopia because ironically, whilst it is western states which are crumbling around them into a morass of self hate and decline, the markets are too busy virtue signalling to notice that Russia is a fundamentally stronger state with low debt, political stability and a mining friendly environment.

Hence the 7% yield which appears stable if not likely to increase. Normally such returns would be worryingly anomalous. In Poly’s case they seem to reflect anti Russian prejudice which is sadly ingrained and legitimised in the UK.

One of the problems with viewing HZM as a ‘climate protection stock’ or a ‘battery metals’ producer is that you’re pigeon holing your perception of the company.

Yet the reality is that nickel has multiple uses and steady both within and without the ‘green’ revolution.

In other words, HZM is much better viewed as a future nickel producer. Forget trying to hitch its fortunes to EV batteries or you’ll be perpetually in a state of varying euphoria and depression based on the uncertain future of this technology.

I believe that the case for HZM stands squarely as a nickel producer where the case for nickel still stands irrespective of EVs.

Thanks Tony and YoYo - that’s helpful.

IMO a move to close down UK operations and perhaps de-list may be appropriate from a value creation perspective. It may be that the UK becomes a completely inhospitable place for companies like I3e.

Much of course depends on whether things calm down after COP26. My concern is that the green lobby will simply be emboldened and their embedded interests within the establishment will not relent on the anti fossil fuel agenda.

I’ve been watching this company for some time but remain un-invested to date and would appreciate some views.

My principal reservation is the North Sea assets. The UK government is the most anti fossil fuel regime in the world IMO, and my concern is that they will refuse to licence production on purely ideological grounds.

This is undoubtedly self harming, but the London regime appears to me to have an almost religious ‘green’ fervour where rationality has no place.

Are my fears mis-placed? Thanks.

Picked peck,

Interminably repeating that i’m ‘wrong’ without ever approaching what it is that you disagree with so vehemently is an intellectually lazy approach from someone like yourself.

What is it that I’m wrong about?

That China is prioritising energy security?
That China is reviewing its transition timetable with the possibility of slowing down its transition (as per the Guardian article I linked)?
That China will continue to build coal stations in China?
That there the thread headline, taken out of context, is mis-leading?

It may be that we actually broadly agree. China is transitioning away from fossil to ‘green’ energy. But that transition may be slower than people anticipate and it may never be fully complete.

I’d note the same about numerous other countries, including the UK for that matter IMO.

The bottom line for me is that any state which fails to provide reliable and affordable power supplies is going to be subject to rapid social instability and decline. China is very acutely aware of this and is not going to make the mistakes of first movers like the UK. That’s going to cause much angst.

So yes, China may aggressively pursue green energy if you like, but it’s even more aggressively going to pursue energy security and the sourcing of electricity from coal as much as it needs to. It’s also going to increase consumption of Russian gas.

Context matters.

Thanks PP - just what I was asking for.

However, and this is why I urged caution in interpretation, the headline is slightly mis-leading based on what Xi actually said which was limited to certain initiatives.

At the same time we also had other CCP officials giving rather different messages. As the Guardian has picked this up today I hope that the moral opprobrium poured down yesterday will abate.

As I said yesterday China is very much not abandoning fossil fuels any time soon, and most likely will slow down its green transition because of the intractable problems of intermittency of renewables impacting supply stability.

https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/12/china-coal-fired-plants-uk-cop26-climate-summit-global-phase-out?__twitter_impression=true

Fulmar, you have a curious problem with confirmation bias.

We’re still waiting for the evidence that Xi said what he was ascribed to have said. In fact CCP officials rather implied slowing down transition to ensure security of energy supply. Quite the reverse of the threat statement.

As I said before, if China rolls over at COP26 then I’ll admit to being wrong. If it doesn’t ……..? Thought not - because religious zealots countenance no argument. It will be full on Sino-phobia time.

Back to the original thread statement (above) which was linked to a tweet saying the same thing.

I urged caution and asked for the actual evidence of where Xi said this. None was provided.

As I said before, if China rolls over and signs up to what the West wants at COP26 then I’ll admit to being wrong.

If it doesn’t ………..

Proof is in the pudding.

Fulmar - I’ll keep it simple.

There is no evidence to support the claim made in the thread title. None.

I have read and published a link which clearly illustrates this.

China is interested in energy supply stability and not the virtue signalling of western politicians. If China sends a high level delegation to COP26 and seeks forgiveness for its sins from the same western leaders who regularly berate it over Covid, Taiwan, human rights and coal then I’ll happily admit that you were right.

But I’m not expecting that to happen and if you are then good luck!

What I’ve done is question the thread title ‘Xi promises to aggressively pursue renewables’.

There was little evidence to support that. It appeared to be an appropriation of a news article to fit a particular narrative, although the reality appeared that Xi and the CCP are in fact possibly going to slow transition.

Thereupon we saw some ranting posts which assured us that China lies - and that therefore (presumably) we should ignore what they say if it doesn’t fit our narrative.

Sprinkled in one post was a bizarre denunciation of someone for being ‘unqualified’ - did I miss the qualifications and CVs of others who presumably are qualified?

All in all we’ve seen the usual attempts to make un-supported claims, denounce dissident opinions, and lazily (with a hint of acceptable xenophobia) call the Chinese liars because they allegedly (evidence free of course) lied about Covid etc.

All of which detracts from the case for HZM which is so eloquently made by others without relying on unrealistic ‘green’ targets. A strong resource base, favourable debt financing terms agreed, a credible and capable management, and a favourable nickel outlook.

My point here is that what Chinese officials have actually said, if you read carefully the various pronouncements, is that green transition needs to be thought through carefully not rushed.

But yet the interpretation on this board was that China was suddenly speeding up its transition.

So whilst I may be called an unqualified moron by some for bothering to actually read and interpret sources, I’ll leave you to make up your own minds about the facts.

Well, I see that some people’s cages have been rattled by someone daring to speak outside the orthodox ideology. Maybe I’m actually in China - certainly feels like it at times!

https://www.bloombergquint.com/china/china-rethinks-its-path-to-climate-goals-due-to-energy-crisis

Energy security should be the premise on which a modern energy system is built, and the capacity for energy self-supply should be enhanced,” he said. That means the twin goals of peak emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060 should be achieved in a “sound and well-paced” manner that will require “long and hard” effort, according to Li. In a separate speech on Tuesday, China’s President Xi

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/china/china-rethinks-its-path-to-climate-goals-due-to-energy-crisis
Copyright © BloombergQuint

Well look, I appreciate that there strongly held views.

All I will observe is IMO that the degree of group think about this issue in the UK is an outlier. The practical issues of green energy transition are being handled at a slower and more considered pace elsewhere.

I guess my view is that the case for HZM is strong and does not depend on apocalyptic predictions of mass extinctions in 50 years fuelling optimistic forecasts of rapid EV uptake.

My view is that EVs will be part of the future transport mix but that alternative technology may erode their attractiveness. EVs are actually in some respects quite dirty to produce and rather heavy with some obvious draw backs - certainly not what you’d invent if you had a clean sheet of paper.

I expect healthy nickel demand moving forward, and HZM has an excellent management team with world class assets. But I try to view the case without being blinded by a particular parochial view fed through UK MSM. That case is still strong IMO.

Sorry ……. By CCO I mean CCP!

I’d urge caution here. The People’s Daily is reporting that the CCO is focused on a sensible and sustainable transition to green energy which ensures security of supply.

If anything that means a slow down in the dash for ‘green’, and I think we’ll see this slowly reflected in the West when they realise the real practical problems of rushing to a target with no real consideration of costs and relying on technology not actually invented.

So for me, we may have reached peak ‘green’ starry eyed madness (except in the UK obviously).

None of which detracts from the case for HZM unless you base forecasts for nickel demand and prices on western MSM group think.

Hey DTN - are you Boris’s speech writer?

If not expect a call soon :)

Great points Daytrade.

There is a certain irony that energy market price inflation is coninciding with the COP jamboree. Although most of the UK’s esteemed media are too woke to point it out, fuel price inflation and increasing instability in the power grid can be traced at least in part to deliberate ‘green’ energy policies.

Let’s hope that ordinary people make the connection as they are lectured 24/7 for 12 days by the elite and their entourages who will mostly all have arrived in Glasgow courtesy of fossil fuelled aircraft.

Inflation getting embedded back into economies is no joke and it’s certainly happening. It’s notable that the earlier nonchalance of central banks appears to be reversing, although a cynic might suggest that currency inflatIon is a cheap way for western govts to effectively reduce their intolerable debt burden.

Glencore of course benefits from rising commodity prices, in part at least caused by the complete failure of western energy policies (notably the UK’s).

But inflation is also an insidious beast which can’t be controlled effectively. The risk of an inflation induced global recession or other financial crisis is increasing IMO. It’s difficult to have confidence in the ability of policy makers to address inflation when they’re still partly in denial mode.

Interesting discussion TD2, and thanks for the detailed information.

I don’t claim to have anything like your knowledge in this area so I’ll stick to some general observations.

There’s a fair amount of group think about EVs these days. That makes me uneasy. You say that the battery market is still ‘nascent’ but I’ll observe merely that battery power for vehicles has been researched intensively for at least the last 20 years. The problem of energy density appears to be a formidable one and other than slow incremental gains I feel it’s unlikely that lithium battery EVs are ever going to overcome the problems of weight, range, charge time, cost and degradation.

We seem to be at peak group think now, and as a contrarian I note that high energy prices, intermittency, falling living standards and the sheer practical problems of ‘net zero’ are just beginning to be noted. The move from pious declarations of intent to actual policy is going to be far more challenging for politicians.

That’s all a little off topic in relation to HZM which sits on a world class nickel resource and has made tremendous prudent progress through the turbulent seas of financing provision. I’m a LTH and still accumulating. As always, DYOR.