Member Info for Phulbari

The answer is that last year's AGM was very effectively disrupted and a number of shareholders, including myself, could not get inside. The company should have thought of this sooner, but the Mayfair premises are not suitable if there were to be another similar protest. I am personally glad that this issue is being addressed, and I look forward to attending the meeting at an appropriate venue.

This still is not going to happen under Hasina's watch. GCM remains a long-term punt with the prospects of starting a mining and power operation decreasing, not increasing, as the years roll by.

Kinabalu - There are no promises, only the near certainty that this won't happen on Hasina's watch.

Such rail links are doable but costly and would most likely require quite a lot of new dedicated track and or major upgrades. This would involve more land acquisition along the way and commensurate opposition and delay. Combinations of rail, river and coastal routes are also possible. But shifting the coal all that way across such a densely populated country would be pretty crazy. Matarbari at Cox's Bazar is close to Myanmar, almost the opposite end of the country. Linking up with the proposed power plant at Rampal, close to the Sundarbans, would be a lot easier, because it is much nearer, but it also has logistical challenges. So while neither cross-country coal transport corridors are impossible outcomes, by far the biggest hurdle remains sinking the big hole to extract the stuff in the first place. Once that bullet is bitten, if ever, building a new mine site power plant is by comparison a doddle - and far more cost effective.

The land around the proposed mine is in fact very fertile - most of it is used for intensive rice cultivation. The poster expressing concerns about the entrenched opposition to the proposed mine is dead right. That has always been uppermost in determining Hasina's decision not to approve the scheme. No one doubts the potential long-term economic benefits, but a lot of politicians are afraid of the reaction on the ground in what is after all one of the most volatile countries and volatile regions in the world - hence the standoff.

Nobody is going even to think of a takeover as long as there is no sign of Hasina budging.

There are still no signs that Hasina has changed her long-held position that the mine will not be approved on her watch.

Simply not true! I don't trade the stock. End of.

All the arguments have been forwarded time and time again. Everyone knows that coal is more 'valuable' than rice, and that importing the stuff through non-existent deep water ports in the south is bonkers. But Hasina has to date taken no interest in any of the arguments. That's the roadblock. Keep that in mind every time another poster comes up with a rational bushy-tailed reason why the mine should go ahead. We are dealing with and invested in a project that is ultimately in the hands of the irrational.

Asia Energy (as it was then) has been tapping into and drumming the argument of providing electricity for an energy starved, energy deficient country ever since the early 21st century - certainly as far back as 2004. Rather than assuming that the penny will finally drop, you have to ask yourself why its proposed solution - a big hole in the midst of fertile rice fields - is not yet in a GoB outbox.

The £9 high was on the hope and expectation that GoB permission to mine was in the bag. The current low share price is simply a reflection of the possibility that the current GoB may not agree to the mine.

"if /once GOB get behind project ..." that has always been the problem. There is still no sign of Hasina changing her mind. The project has always been brilliant - at least on paper - but high level political support has consistently been missing or at best lukewarm. I agree that Tang is doing the best he can, but the holistic approach of teaming up with a big Chinese power player is only half the story; the challenge remains persuading Hasina to dig a big hole in her green and fertile backyard.

I am not saying there are none, but there are very few (only a handful in fact) big international operators who could take on the challenge, and it is not to be forgotten, as you point out, that BHP walked away from it. Like it or not, we are still on the North Face.

There are in fact very few international operators big enough to take on the logistical challenges and upfront costs of open cut mining at Phulbari, and so Ricky's surmise that none of the biggies has stepped forward is most probably correct. He is, though, wrong about it being an uphill struggle; it's more like a vertical north face - climbable but exposed and extremely tricky.

"no amount of deramping will stop us from attaining a true valuation on the GL."

GPback - you are quite right; deramping, as you like to call postings that have their feet on the ground, will make no difference to the outcome.

The only thing that will determine the outcome is Hasina, and the jury remains out when it comes to her changing her mind - Chinese or no Chinese.

You are wrong again GPback. I continue to have excellent relations with the company in question and bear no grudges at all against them. But having experienced Bangladesh, its media and politicians, I remain very wary about Hasina ever delivering, and this has been a consistent thread in my many posts. Your optimism is based on hope, little more.

Those who believe that Hasina, now the undisputed Empress of Bangladesh, will deliver on the Phulbari Project - and I am not one of them - will doubtless be heartened by the Postcard from Dhaka in the latest edition of Private Eye.

"Sheik Hasina has done her deals with big business, foreign friends and the security boys," it concludes. "They indulge her royal pretensions and facilitate her authoritarian tendencies. We may not like it but there seems little we can do: our prime minister is the undisputed leader of Bangladesh, the queen of all she surveys."

Well, we will see. I acknowledge that the country has moved on since I knew it but I have good reason to believe that Hasina hasn't. She is the ultimate prevaricator and procrastinator.

For all the huffing and puffing on this board, the joint project with the Chinese and the key ingredient, Asia Energy's open cut coal mine, is going nowhere until and unless Hasina budges and agrees to dig a big hole in her backyard; and there are still no signs of that happening.

Why? For much the same reason that she has resisted saying yes for the last 10 years.