Member Info for Phulbari

In the agreement, there is provision for arbitration.

For a more challenging assessment of the upcoming elections, try this!

https://thediplomat.com/2023/11/why-is-bangladesh-even-bothering-to-hold-elections/

And as for whether Hasina will change her mind - that is the million dollar question. At the technocrat level, the proposed mine ticks all the boxes, but Hasina may well conclude that it's still too much of a political timebomb.

All to play for ...

It's shaping up to be a one-sided, one-legged race, with Hasina and her Awami League (AL) standing for a fourth consecutive term and the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) boycotting the poll arguing that it will be rigged and unfair. The BNP has faced a massive clampdown in recent months with some 10,000 activists arrested. The largest Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) opposition party has been banned from the election. While the outcome of the vote is predictable, the likelihood of street violence is high. The situation is volatile, but in terms of realpolitk Hasina has the firepower - at least for now.

Bangla - I fear you are right. Even if she decides to approve the mine there is still the mighty political challenge of the license. The hard left and opponents of the project have never accepted the 'foreign' ownership of the resource - notwithstanding that it was 'foreign' money (i.e. us shareholders) who invested risk capital in testing and proving the resource in accordance with a government granted and endorsed licence. There is then the Green Wave and also the logistics - the proposed mine is the wrong end of the country for most of the coal-fired power stations. That said, I think this is worth a punt in the run-up to the elections. The hope value, at the very least, will increase.

Elections to be held on 7 January 2024. Expect trouble down at the ranch.

In fact, we had an ace BBC stringer working on it. He remains unnamed, but he did a marvellous job.

Me too. I commissioned the video and steered it through production. Those were the golden days when the project was taking wings. Unfortunately it ran into Bangladeshi politics and Bungla bureaucracy, and it hit the buffers in an obdurate PM Hasina where it is still stuck.

Maybe - but not on Hasina's watch.

Hasina is not for turning!

Https://www.supplychainbrain.com/articles/37776-global-coal-demand-hit-record-levels-in-2022-expected-to-grow-again-in-2023?mc_cid=6fa8a08ead&mc_eid=4961da7cb1

Not even Tang. No one from GCM has ever had a meaningful meeting or dialogue with Hasina. To a large extent, they are operating in a void.

The two deposits are contiguous, and mining logic always pointed to them merging with Phulbari into one big open cut mine. Bangla being Bungla, of course, the Barapukuria power station sits right on top of the resource so that would have to be demolished - not in itself a big issue, given the potential scale of what could be a mega mining operation. But this is Bungladesh, not Bangladesh, and so it won't happen that way - certainly not in Hasina's reign.

The key to this pidgin English report is that it was never going to be possible to extract more than 10 per cent of the total deposit at Barapukuria by underground mining. If you want more, you have to go open cut, and then you are back to square one - digging a big hole and displacing a large number of rice farmers. Any sensible government would have long ago determined that - properly managed with a plan to mine and make good with compensation and backfill - open cast was a price worth paying. That way you can extract up to 90 per cent of the deposit. However, common sense has not prevailed so far in Hasina's glorious reign. Don't hold your horses, or for that matter don't shoulder your shovels!

A very sober but accurate assessment. Many have believed for a long time that litigation is the only recourse. There seems to be no other way to recover or seek compensation for all that money invested in proving a resource under terms of a government contract which the host country has consistently refused to honour.

Nothing changes. When the project was first launched in the early part of this century that is precisely what the Bunglas did in Dhaka - they set up committees. Anything to avoid taking a decision.

Why has Bangladesh gone in for a maze of import based power plants and ignored it's own "free" coal.??
Simple answer - because of Hasina. She won't dig a hole in her own backyard.

Anu and Hasina, both in different but linked ways, remain major roadblocks. Nothing changes.

Yes, it was such a huge demo that I hardly noticed it. The only authentic thing about this report is the photo of the banner that was held up rather forlornly outside and far from the building's entrance. It was pretty easy to miss. The drivel spoken by the two activists who came to the meeting (both nominal shareholders) bore no resemblance to the reported speech, and in any case it was all, as we well know, utter drivel.

Dream on and good luck!

Wishful thinking, Goonerpete.