Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
JimR. I can tell you from experience that you do get a lot of respect and browny points for being in the province and setting up an office there. Newfoundland mentality is that they simply do not trust outlanders, they dont even trust each other, and they are a very negative people who don't like change. They will find a 100 ways not to do anything, especially make decisions.
To do a simple water main replacement in St Johns they allowed 3 years. Any decent contractor could do it in 3 months. Watch the Republic of Doyle, it is a good TV series and will give you a good insight into local mentality. Trust me it is not exaggerated either.
DrM, calm down dear before you do yourself a mischief.
I am fully aware of the concept and I do not dispute the advantages however you have to look at the whole business model and not just the technology. There are also environmental conditions which have to be taken into account which can seriously add to the project cost.
I know what roadside and logistic costs were in 2014 as I still have all the spreadsheets. I also know that the environmental costs and limitations on what, where and when you could harvest timber was and I also know since then they have got a lot more arduous.
An efficient operation needs markets for quality lumber, paper mill logs, and the waste, of which there is a lot of, do you have any idea on how much sawdust there is in old piles across the province? A staggering amount, enough to keep a pellet plant going for 3 years just with that.
You still havent answered my question by the way. As usual, attack anything you dont like to read or hear rather than face the truth.
As for being a failure, that is just your opinion which is worthless becaue you can't even answer one simple question I asked you. It is now nearly 10 years since the Grand Falls mill closed and as yet nothing has replaced it, doesnt that tell you anything?
Oh dear, badluck, getting nasty just because I dont agree with what you say, how very childish of you.
My tuppence worth is that I don't know at the moment what will happen, I suspect a fudged agreement to allow AEG to start but with terrible and expensive conditions attached. The vast amount of people on here have no clue.about the industry or the province and the numbers they come up with regards value are a joke. If it was that good there would be a queue to join in, instead there has been no interest for years. The timber is too expensive and difficult to get out.
There is a reasonable but limited local market for lumber but logistics costs and tariffs ruin any export potential. A few of us have looked seriously at this and we are no amateurs and we know the province and the business
So ask yourself an honest question if the timber in the province was such a great deal, why is nobody else chasing it?
More than some Nagy. I wish I could post photos on here from when we did an inspection in 2014. <br /><br />Ted Lewis borrowed $10 million from the government and bought 2nd hand junk and made a mess of the installation. Neither bagging line works, the pellet mills themselves would need a total overhaul, the layout is all wrong, the kiln doesn't work, the sawmill itself is out of the ark and something you would see in a Buster Keaton movie, that is if it hasnt rusted away completely by now.<br />There is no pellet storage and no water access for shipping, basically, it is a junkyard.<br /><br />I still have all the sales documentation including the assets and financial reports and it shows very clearly why Holson went bust, and why the public doesnt want Holson to get any more funding, Oh and did I mention the fires they had??
Georgia is a natural place to set up, and lots of cheap fibre, and but you have to know your logistics. Surprisingly many don't and have suffered for it.
Zeetruth, and I often wonder if you are a real investor or a company troll. Yes there were at least 2 investigations by concerned groups that I am aware of as I was asked my thoughts by both. I also know others who gave their tuppence worth. One investigation was by a major media group, and the other by industry stakeholders.
I dont know Badger. I got everyone on side, and all the major players in agreement, everyone had a slice of pie, even Holson was going to come out of it well, and it still didnt work, and it isnt just me. Lots have tried and failed in Newfoundland, including local companies.
Yes there is the timber there suitable for pellets, most of it that is all it is good for. Slow grow lots of scrub and difficult to access. Big timber is rare except in Labrador, but most of that is poor quality.
Cutting a deal with Krugers and Burton Cove is the best way to access timber, they have control of the west and most of the central, and Kevin Sexton has the east side, but he wont play with anyone.
Logistics costs in the Northern Peninsular are crippling, which is why Roddickton is a bad location, no storage or deep water access, and St Anthony is too far North and furthest from the timber.
Bishop's Falls in Central was the best location, near the port of Botwood, on the highway and central for timber.
A joint venture with Kruger at Corner Brook is the best set up if you know what you are doing, if not Old Joe will eat you alive and leave you holding the baby.
If I was AEG I would nurture a relationship with Krugers and set up a very small trial plant in Corner Brook in Krugers yard. The govt and Krugers are looking for a company to transition to as Kruger fades away and bows out, so if they prove themselves then they are good to go.
Poker. Professional interest as unlike most on here, I did my due diligence and a love of Newfoundland. I would strongly recommend it for anyone wanting to visit, especially the Northern Peninsular.
Zeetruth wouldnt know zeetruth if it smacked him in the face with a wet haddock. Dont worry there is always tomorrow and who knows this time next year you could all be millionaires. Seems like some people get very tetchy when proven wrong.
DrM. Well, you can't say I didn't warn you. The government doesn't have to say no, as far as they are concerned they just don't have to say yes. We went through this in 2014 and recently the Botwood group also went under, and they are local boys.
Now that is almost witty.
Entrepreneurs fail more than they win, I didn't win in Atlantic Canada but I have done very well on projects elsewhere, and hopefully, my current project will do well if it carries on as it is, so who knows. As they say, those who have never failed have probably never done anything in their lives.
I am not sure if you are referring to me, but what a load of garbage. Nobody did any such thing. All they proved was I had been trying to set up a pellet plant business in Atlantic Canada and failed to get it going. Sometimes you win and sometimes you dont, and Atlantic Canada is notoriously difficult as Mr Spinks will tell you.
Spinks should have gone to Georgia in the 1st place, in 2014 I could get timber delivered for $30 a US ton, and electricity was about a 1/3 of what it is in Newfoundland.
Totally agreed.
You sound a right dumb arse.
You obviously dont know the politics, the history on the island or the current political and financial problems. The local provincial government has screwed up everything they have touched and it becomes obvious even to the dumbest in politics that it is better to make no decision than a bad one, and you have to look back over a 100 years to see where it all went wrong.
To make it worse Spinks is associated with Holson and the Roddfrickton plant, who still owe over $10 million they got the last time they were baled out and wasted the money, and not only that everyone knows the Roddickton plant is just junk and totally in the wrong place, it doesnt even have scrap value as it would cost more to recover than it was worth.
In 2014 our company at the time also looked at acquiring most of the timber rights on the island and it is a mess I can assure you. The government then tried to do a deal with Rebtech, which went under.
So trust me I do know the local industry and my local contacts in the industry have been in it all their lives and they are all old boys like me as well. Nobody on here has done an inch of due diligence to understand what they are investing in.
There is more timber in Georgia and NC than you can shake a stick at, and it is less than half the price of what it is in Newfoundland, and energy prices are less than half. Georgia always makes sense if you want millions of tonnes of cheap timber, NEWFOUNDLAND DOESNT and never will.
The utter crap I read on here about NL and how much timber there is, just shows how little people know about the industry, it really amazes me. If NL timber was such a good deal it would have been taken up long ago I can assure you. It is your money so do your homework
Once again you show your self up to be a small minded petty person, who has no clue about the technology, the industry, Atlantic Canada.or even AEG. I have only ever tried to give you the benefit of my local knowledge and experience, and I have never written of anything that was out of my sphere oF knowledge or expertise. As you have done so much research into my past you will know over the last 47 years I have done many projects worldwide, the vast majority have all worked out well. As for the article by the corrupt and totally incompetent Mr Gillespie, and I am quite safe calling him that and putting it in writing as unlike him I check and do my research and keep ALL information, emails etc etc. In 2012 I received a call informing me of the closure of the Liverpool plant and I was asked to set up a team to but the assets. To set up the team took just a few days, and we had sight of all the funds needed to not only purchase the assets but to develop them, build new plants and to upgrade the port at Shelburne. The reason we needed Shelburne was down to Liverpool being a shallow draft port. I also contacted Resolute and started negotiation with them which was going well. HOWEVER, the government then decided to step in and block negotiations as THEY were going to buy the assets. Rest is history, the government bought the plant broke up the assets, many 100's lost their jobs, and an industry was ruined. At the same time, Gilespie a Shelburne local journalist wrote this article. The reason he wrote the article was to block us buying the land at the port so his cronies could buy it. The article had so many errors it was a joke, I have never even been to British Columbia let alone tried to do a project there, neither did I try to do a project in Cape Breton, you would have to be very foolish to do that if you know the region. The part about Weymouth was mostly true and we had a major investor who wanted me to build, the only problem is that the supply side is so fragmented I simply could not get enough biomass supply under contract so I walked away. He got the wrong town in Georgia, it was Sandersville we wanted to build in not Waynesboro. The head of the biomass industry at Georgia state at the time certainly knew of my project as did the all those in the industry, and she remains a personal friend of mine to this day. Bill Arsenault was working with me and Richard Walton to build a plant in Sheet Harbour Nova Scotia and I have all the emails and contracts to prove it, & this could be validated by so many people in so many departments, that there are too many to mention. Bill Arsenault was sat next to me at the Senate hearing and Walton proofread and helped produce the notes There are those who do or at least try, and those who ***** and carp. Those who do will not win every time but they will try and they will achieve and create something, the carping *****es never do a damn thing, & I would rather be a trier t
Initially, it was to pass on information local and general, which might have benefited investors, but that did not go down well. Now it is just interesting to see what happens. I see a lot of posts here on ridiculous valuations, over-optimistic projections made by people who have no clue what they are talking about. However, I do see that it would take very little for the share price to spike to 12-14.I know the good news is highly unlikely to come from Newfoundland but I have no knowledge or interest of the other locations or projects, so who knows, your guess is as good as mine.
What a pile of bull shit, how the hell do you work that out? I posted about the conference in CB because I was invited to go, and the only reason I posted on here is because of the snow. The is a whole pile of BS in these posts by people who have no clue about what they are talking about, especially valuations.
No, none what so ever.