Member Info for mrtibbles

Listening to these presentations it make s it clear from the comments by David Buik about the difficulty of getting anything through the financial regulations why Basel 3 has taken so long to come in!

Hi Gnome,
Time governments the world over started to stop the blatant exploitation of the world natural environment by unscrupulous mining and oil /energy companies.
WWF-Australia conservation scientist Dr Stuart Blanch said: “Ecologists estimate koala numbers in Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT have likely more than halved since 2000. We call on the Australian environment minister to use federal environmental law to list them as ‘endangered’ in eastern states to increase legal protections for forests and woodlands where koalas live.”
https://www.ifaw.org/uk/press-releases/bushfires-report-list-koalas-endangered?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&ms=KONDG220230002&cid=7013k000001a3QS

The Canadian government is also permitting terrible cruelty by poising its wildlife!
The Canadian government allows the deadly poisons—strychnine, sodium cyanide and Compound 1080—to be used in Alberta and Saskatchewan to kill wolves, bears and coyotes. But every year the widespread and poorly regulated use of these indiscriminate poisons results in the agonising and painful deaths of not only these species, but also pet dogs, endangered wildlife and other non-target animals.
https://action.ifaw.org/page/82163/action/1?pu=0&utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&ms=KONDG220251002&cid=7013k000001a4y5
That said our UK government is setting no example and has in general fails to prectice what it preaches!

The Government has again put bees at risk by permitting the use of the banned pesticide thiamethoxam on sugar beet in England in 2022.

The Government, for the second year running, has allowed for a banned bee-harming pesticide to be used by sugar beet farmers in England, threatening our precious pollinators
In making the decision ministers went against the explicit advice of their own scientific advisors not to allow the pesticide to be used.
Environmental organisations the RSPB, Friends of the Earth, Buglife & The Wildlife Trusts say the decision goes against the government’s green promises, and will ultimately lead to the harm of wildlife.
Farmland covers 75% of the UK making it vital in the fight to reverse nature’s decline(1).
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/government-puts-bees-risk/

The latest confusing con from Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak!
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/02/martin-lewis--most-should-do-nothing--stick-on-the-price-cap-and/?utm_source=CEC_subscribers&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PriceCap_Feb22&utm_content=11&bcode=305572e3-907e-453c-b4c5-d8dfc024f44d#stickpricecap

The Yanks always like to use somebody else's country as a base o fight their wars from!
As pillars of American global dominance, these bases severely undermine UK sovereignty. With negligible control over the actions American forces have undertaken from within UK territory,
https://cnduk.org/resources/military-bases-us-bases-in-the-uk-and-uk-bases-overseas-what-they-are-and-what-they-do/

American Involvement in Wars From Colonial Times to the Present
Wars From 1675 to the Present Day
https://www.thoughtco.com/american-involvement-wars-colonial-times-present-4059761

Stars and Stripes: The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918 to 1919
https://www.loc.gov/collections/stars-and-stripes/articles-and-essays/a-world-at-war/american-expeditionary-forces/

2018 An expert explains why the US struggles with modern wars.
https://www.vox.com/2018/2/15/17007678/syria-trump-war-win-interview

Hi Sotolo ,
Bit of a digression from worrying about the markets, but related to Magic mushrooms!
Whilst on a college course I became good friends with another student Dave who's father owned a well established reprographic/photographic business based in a small market town in the midlands. Dave didn't have a car license so in order that he could get to get to college and work Dave persuaded his father to buy him a Ural Cossack motorcycle combination.
The Urals was delivered from the Liverpool importers to Dave parents house in a large wooden crate, inside the crate the Ural's metal work was wrapped in brown greased paper , the rest of the bike was wrapped in wood wool and old egg trays!, it took us a day to unpack the Ural and then it had to commissioned for the UK by the local motorcycle shop, who asked if Dave wanted the supplied optional machine gun rail fitted to the sidecar!
The robustness of this URA; was incredible which was just as well because some months later after Dave had eaten some what thought were wild mushrooms for breakfast (which he had found the previous day)as he was riding his Ural down a lane he hallucinated causing him to swerve the Ural off the road smashing through a closed five bar wooded gate, then across a field and straight through a hedge knocking Dave off and the Ural to come to a standstill at the bottom of a deep ditch.
Luckily the farmer, a friend who owned the field arrived a few minutes later in his tractor and helped Dave who up who was free from major injury and then after taking Dave home returned to pull out the Ural which had suffered a cracked indicator lens and a broken number plate!
A few days later when the farmer called round for his cheque for a new gate he said that some the seasonal workers claimed they had found magic mushrooms growing in the spinney, but he had never found any himself .
From then on Dave decided to stick to eggs on toast for breakfast in future!
Dave ran his Ural most days for over 17years and apart from tyres and normal service items spent nothing else , the Ural is now only really used at weekends, having now now covered around 50 000 miles, it had a clutch replacement, but no other engine work and allowing for inflation is still worth around the original price!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytjW_XEaSdU
https://www.adventurebikerider.com/ural-ranger-right-hand-drive/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rxzPPk4cKk
http://www.cossack-motorcycles.com/ural-motorcycles-imz/

Fair comments Paul, but how much will building materials and golden flip flops have gone up by then?
Alas I trusted the serpents, my hopes of owning the golden flip flops were based on a desert mirage created by ElRaghy & Pardey spoof and the complacency of a lazy BOD & NED's!
After the way we were deceived I no longer have the high expectations I once held about good times coming, it seems they were possibly just an illusion, a hope based on blind faith, so what will be, will be now!
But then is it really possible to trust any of the mining companies, or that said any company, the markets, or our worlds leaders and politicians?
It seems in the 21st century as though the odds are just as heavily loaded against fairness, truth, integrity and the ordinary people just as much as they have always been!

Remind you of something?
"Is Bluffing a necessary part of market control?"
How Science is Taking the Luck out of Gambling - with Adam Kucharski
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=658xlubwnDc

From the statisticians forecasting sports scores to the intelligent bots beating human poker players, Adam Kucharski traces the scientific origins of the world's best gambling strategies. Watch the Q&A here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0Xxb... Subscribe for regular science videos: http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe Adam's book "The Perfect Bet" is available now - https://geni.us/9Ao9j Spanning mathematics, psychology, economics and physics, Adam Kucharski reveals the long and tangled history between betting and science, and explains how gambling shaped everything from probability to game theory, and chaos theory to artificial intelligence. Adam Kucharski is a Lecturer at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where his research focusses on the dynamics of infectious diseases, particularly emerging infections. Prior to this, he got a degree in mathematics from the University of Warwick, received a PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Cambridge and had a post-doc position at Imperial College London.

Please remember this was recorded on Tuesday before the FED's latest statement.
00:00 Start
02:55 Craig shares his trends prediction for 2022
04:50 Having That Bigger View over market shenanigans
13:05 The Fed - pivoting the other way?
15:45 Where did the 1.7 million ounces of GLD inflows go?
25:20 Is this the year we finally reached that point of critical mass?
28:40 Physical, physical, physical… All global banks are adding gold to their reserves
34:55 The price of gold vs the value of gold
42:05 The split between the Fed and BIS is coming…
48:40 We’re close to getting a million views on Craig’s “The biggest gold and silver swindle…” video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQlRpd2GSfQ

Just to remind those who may wish to be critical, the opinions expressed in this video of Andrew Maguire and any guest,

Tibbs

EU insurance laws should be changed, says Bank governor Bailey

Thu, 10th Feb 2022 18:38
Alliance News

(Alliance News) - Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey will say that EU laws which require insurance companies to hold enough cash to ensure they do not collapse are not well suited for the UK.

The governor is expected to tell listeners to a speech in the City that the so-called Solvency 2 regulations needed to be reformed.

"I do not for a moment consider that the Solvency 2 we transposed from EU law and regulation is best suited to the UK," he is expected to say at a dinner organised by industry group TheCityUK on Thursday.

"Why would it be, since it was designed to cover 27 countries? The case for reform is clear."

He added that in changing them the UK must first "ensure we define and set our expectations on safety and soundness and policyholder protection".

The Solvency 2 regulations were set to ensure the stability of insurance companies across the EU.

It has three pillars, the most important of which is ensuring that insurers hold enough cash so they can resist becoming insolvent if they get an unusual number of claims.

The regulations also include rules on transparency and on regulatory oversight. They came into effect in 2016 and were transferred to UK law when the country left the EU.

At the time the proposals were being debated, they were criticised by the boss of Prudential, who said they could drive companies out of the UK. Last year the business said it was committed to its UK headquarters.

The speech comes just days after the Governor sparked a backlash for saying that workers should help keep inflation down by not asking for big pay rises.

His comments came despite a huge increase in the cost of living, caused by rising energy prices among other things. The Bank predicts that inflation will reach more than 7% in April.

Both Downing Street and unions pushed back against the governor's words.

GMB general secretary Gary Smith said: "You do not appear to have called for restraint in price setting, or dividend payments."

By August Graham, PA City Reporter

Thank you Dasut,
Fair comments, especially about the management side of NHS trusts!
I only wish that Martin Horgan had taken over in 2018!

Centamin being where it is to be expected, I liken the situation to the fable and
the Moral of “The Boy Who Cried, Wolf!
This short story teaches a moral lesson that people refuse to believe a liar even when he is telling the truth.
The boy who cried wolf story is a story that every child/company director should read and learn the underlying lesson from!
Pardey Josef and Youssef cried 560,000 -600,000 oz from Sukari far too many times knowing it was a lie!
It is painfully apparent now by the pile of uncleared waste in which Sukari is mired and the tears of clear up facing the new management that the claims that all was well at Sukari by Pardey on many occasions was just more lies!
Pardey promised those resource updates for the many millions of dollars spent drilling in West Africa and failed to deliver anything other than disappointment far too many times!
Agreed the those responsible for the years of deliberately distorting and misrepresenting the true state of things to share holders and the market have moved on, albeit with their saddle bags full of swag (Bonus shares).
Unfortunately the mess they have left behind for their successors is considerable and may be fraught with as yet unknown challenges to say the least , but that said the rewards for succeeding in their strategy may yet exceed all our best hopes and expectations!
Unfortunately though at this stage even if the Messiah were to descend with a heavenly choir of angels trumpeting that lessons have really been learned, that things have really changed for the better and that future production will be based on realistic and sustainable estimates, the market would most likely remain skeptical,suspicions or just unwilling to believe until there a year or so of proof, or possibly a miracle of some kind that could whisk away all that open pit crap and restore the flowing of high grade ore whilst reducing AISC at a stroke !
But as the market and we share holders all realise such miracles are unlikely in the real world, so the fate of Centamin, Sukari and our investment is dependent upon the professional ability determination and integrity of Martin Horgan and his new team to deliver on their promises over a period of time.

Hi Dasut,
"But then, I suppose, when with the benefit of hindsight one begins to search one's past for such 'turning points', one is apt to start seeing them everywhere."Kazuo Ishiguro
Looking back now the concerns flagged up in 2015 & 2018 by Kees Dekker about the way that Pardey his team were running Sukari were opportunities for them to change their ways.
But instead they continued to compound bad mining practice onto the previous bad mining practice whist denying that anything was wrong and papering over the cracks until a crack appeared that no papering over could cover!
i accept that unexpected difficulties can present themselves in mining but when that happens they should be truthfully acknowledged , explained fully and dealt with professionally in the most appropriate manner, none of which happened!
To say Share holders and the market were misled is an understatement, Pardey, Josef and Youssef continued to trumpet unrealistic and certainly as now apparent unsustainable guidance predictions in the Egyptian media and in Centamins quarterly reports to share holders and the market.
The link that Cowichan provided to the 'Times" article raising questions about what or whom was responsible for happened to the LHDR, this has never been explained to this day,why not?
I agree that mining equipment is very expensive, that said in comparison though failing to mitigate production risk by not having a contingency plan or even a spare LHDR can cost a lot more.
How many millions of dollars have been spent drilling holes for no return in the WA projects, some of that funding would have been better spent on Sukari producing ore rather than unfulfilled promises.
Barminco may have considerable experience in underground drilling,although their performance at Sukari does seem questionable in many respects.
In the absence of any explanation to the contrary after the failings in 2018 it is hard to have any confidence in the way that certain contractors operated which seems to have been on the limit or even possibly in a careless manner?
True the contactors staff have experience, but then the client/comapny must also have gained some understanding of the contacted out operations or works.
There seems little justification in staying with with a contactor for fear that that their equipment or fleet is unreliable or nearing the end of its life.
Contractors are in the business to make profits out of the client and certainly as happened in the the UK the NHS & Local authorities that entered into PFI partnerships in good faith by outsourcing to contactors have always ended up being taken advantage of because they are regarded as over a barrel which as been the case in every other industry as we are now painfully aware in today's world.
Far better to take control of essential operations by employing the right staff investing in the right equipment/plant and managing them in the proper way.
Equipment depreciation cost are reclaimable against tax.

Opinion of a very experienced and respected mining analyst-
Using contractors for mining is almost always a bad idea.
Only when there is a short term mining project such as the pushback at the open pit there, you could argue to use contractors. It is not worthwhile and efficient to equip and staff up for such a project.
That said if you have a longer term mining project you should use an owner miner approach for the following reasons:
- Mining is the core activity of any mining business. If you outsource this activity you never build up an in-house expertise. It would be similar for an information business to outsource design of information system and programming activities.
Also It is more expensive as the contractor will build-in a profit margin and should they miscalculate and go under, you will have to take over at short notice, which results in a shamble, loss of revenue, appointing another contractor which knows it has you by the balls or you have to equip and staff up quickly, which in practice is impossible having worked for a company that experienced this when their contractor went bust!
In general there is a loss of control in directing mining activities having to work through another party.

Hi Dasut, Your understanding on these matter is better than many of us on here, although after the apparent failure of "whoever" to take proper care of the sole LHDR and the failure by Centamin to ever disclose just who was responsible for the balls up and the inability or reluctance to claim any compensation from the guilty parties for dereliction of duty then taking these specialist services in house seems to be long overdue.

Absolutely agree Mr Bond!

Absolutely Ken and Pardey tried to lie his way out of it with when reporting t o the market and shareholders!
So did Barminco forget to order LHDR spares or did Capital just not check before pushing the plunger and blowing the LHDR up, either way appallingly bad site management!
Mind you when this happened where was Youssef, probably checking out real estate to spend his bonus shares on!

The Bank of England has only one solution to rising inflation – make workers pay
Daniela Gabor
Tue, 8 February 2022, 10:30 am
The consensus that has prevailed for the past 40 years told us that monetary policy must be depoliticised, so that central banks can independently pursue the goal of price stability in the economy without catering to politicians, private finance or corporations. Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, threw that impression aside last week when he suggested that workers should not demand higher wages in order to contain the inflationary pressures confronting the British economy in 2022.

“I’m not saying nobody gets a pay rise” he said. But “we do need to see restraint in pay bargaining, otherwise it will get out of control”.

When central banks call for workers to yet again shoulder the pain, their role as guardians of the distributional status quo – the struggle over the distribution of national income between labour and capital – becomes clear for everyone to see. It is a misjudged call, tearing off the veil of carefully curated neutrality, and showing whose interests the Bank really protects.

Bailey’s reasoning is clear. The 1970s left central banks scared of the prospect of wage-price spirals, when powerful unions obtained worker pay rises that kept pace with higher living costs, and in turn companies transferred those higher labour costs into higher prices, triggering renewed wage demands.
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/bank-england-only-one-solution-103027651.html

Sotolo, From your statement I assume you had magic mushrooms on toast for breakfast this morning or you are smoking a "Spliff!". or both!

Schomosport from 2018
Posts: 11
Off Topic
Opinion: No Opinion
Price: 119.20
RE: Re Complacency
Today 20:45
In general I find this forum extremely informative and am most grateful for those such as MrT who agitate on behalf of shareholders and bring back information directly from the Company. I would however like to say a few words on the topic of the sudden loss of the single drilling machine.

I know very little about mining however I do know quite a lot about reliability, dependability engineering, contracting for availability, etc. which is the gist of the discussion regards the absence of a hot standby replacement for the single drilling machine. Fundamentally it is a cost/risk decision where in almost every case in every industry, management will ignore the recommendations of risk engineers and trade cost NOT incurred against the cost of what MIGHT be incurred if the risk comes to fruition. Sometimes management get it right, sometimes they get it wrong, often massively so, BP Macondo being an example of the latter.

So I am not even a little bit surprised at the predicament that arose when a single critical equipment item failed and bought production to a halt. Saddened, cynical, disappointed, world weary but surprised, no, it happens all the time. Given that a new machine has now been ordered it would appear that management have also concluded that they got it wrong as they have ordered a replacement. Hopefully they will extrapolate the argument to other single point failure parts of the production process, but don’t bet on it. People do not like spending money mitigating risk!

As to the wails about penalty clauses, liability insurance, contractor should pay for loss etc.; forget about it unless you want to add two noughts to the contract price. And spend years in court fighting for ‘victory’ at every twist and turn. Centamin management don’t appear to have been overly successful in this arena with their own government I note. Sorry, that sort of a world doesn’t exist and, if it did, nobody would bid for it, they all want to be like these companies who think they can experiment in running a railway at a profit and then give it back when it goes tit’s up. Dream on.

You might also like to ask the contractor how many times he has been encouraged to delay preventative maintenance just to get a little more output out to boost the month end figures. The contractor always agrees of course as its customer’s risk. That sort of mentality doesn’t do much for reliability either!

Martiin Horgan seems to be pushing ahead with his strategy of moving key services back in house from contractors, after the balls up by Barminco underground drilling contractor in 2018 I think this is a move long overdue!
I found it hard to understand why in 2018 Centamin failed kick Barmico out for failing to have critical spare parts available for the one and only and working on limits underground LHDR or invoke some sort of action re penalty clauses to claim back costs of lost production.
One of our members at the time (Schomosport) then informed me that in order order to keep contract costs lower/affordable such penalty clauses are generally not part of the T&C of contracts, so it seems in that instance bad supervision on the part of Pardey, Youssef & team was and lack of lost production penalty clause gave Barminco a get out of jail free card!
You may be interested in their informative comments in the next post re production risks and contracts T&C

Re Centamin production downgrade to 505,000 oz 2018
2018 tipped as ” a year to forget” for Centamin as grades falter
By David McKay -May 25, 2018
https://www.miningmx.com/news/gold/33018-2018-tipped-year-forget-centamin-grades-falter/
"The cause of the issue is two-fold. First, lower than expected grades in the transition zone of the open pit mean less gold than expected. This should pick up through the year as mining moves out of this area. Second, volumes of ore mined underground has been down on budget due to kit availability issues. These issues are being resolved (and a second crew has been mobilised by the contractors) and again should see improving tonnage through the balance of the year. Which should mean 2Q is the weakest production quarter this year."
https://www.markets.iweb-sharedealing.co.uk/research-centre/market-news/article/?id=3313405&type=bsm

Part of a post from Cowichan

Question: Has Centamin's management sufficiently explained the continual (going on two years!) poor grading control in the main pit?
Which just happens to be under the authority and watchful eye of Capital Drilling?

Or has management ever come clean with the ill fated long hole drill rig LHDR? I spotted this article which seems to imply the LHDR was damaged when it was left in the blast zone!? Who did that? Capital Drilling?!
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/endeavour-needs-to-dig-a-bit-deeper-g5p06w5fc

"All gold miners enjoy a spot of pyrotechnics. Take Centamin. It had such an explosive day of it last year that it clean forgot to remove its own kit from the blasting zone. The upshot? A poleaxed “long hole drilling rig”.

A trip down Memory Lane
https://www.lse.co.uk/ShareChat.asp?ShareTicker=CEY&share=Centamin-PLC&thread=00E2F959-BAC4-4978-B38A-42B319F53BDF

Moving more operations/services "In house"seems to confirm that at the very least if "Balls ups" happen in the future it will be easier to determine responsibility!