Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Just a bit of pure speculation and guess work here on my part.---
---Maybe there is a bit more going on than just the transfer of that remaining £300/- from the loan facility.
----Are we re-arranging the conversion terms of the last part of that facility,---- or could we be negotiating a totally fresh loan facility, of say, another £2-3 million.(that will give us long term financial stability).
-Just guessing.
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Papp/Sear-----the talk of a development zone, made years ago, still holds true today and for one good reason-----natural resources.----and i'm not talking coal.
-----------There is an interesting component to the proposed mine which is often missed, and that is the overburden includes extremely large quantities of: construction sand, Kaolin, aggregates, clay, silica sand, as well as construction rocks such as Granite, sandstone and Tillite. The total of these materials is in the billions of tonnes. The availability of these materials is expected to spawn new industries in the area, including pottery, bricks, construction, ceramics and glass. Once established there is no reason why these industries could not continue as these resources are not at the depths of the coal, and therefore would be easy to continue to extract.
----Phulbari has so much more to offer the region and Bangladesh, other than just the coal. .and these other benefits will continue long after the coal is gone
Yes HTE, --- that has been the tactic over the last years, to just form another committee and just kick things into the long grass.---but those tactics have now come back to bite them --hard.
-Lack of action and disjointed polices, have brought the country to its knees...but.. do you really expect them to admit to these mistakes with an election just 12 days away---of course not.
----So for now they try to paper over the gaping cracks by deflecting the conversation with talk of committees to sort things out in the future----in truth , what else can they say at this stage, with this election coming, they certainly can't admit they have been wrong all these years----not this side of the election anyway.
--Stay calm and carry on, is all they can do right now,... but the press will not allow this to all be swept under the carpet, no matter how hard the GOB tries to shrug it off.--Ignore the comments of people like Majed Ali, who are being used to try and put a gloss on things, ----you can feel the growing sense of panic underneath, and the realisation that they have made a complete mess of everything.
-There will be no time for further committees after the election---their bank balance will force them into immediate action as soon as it is over.
--The long grass has been cut down, and there is no nowhere to hide, they Must mine Phulbari and save $2 billion a year in imports, --it is their only get out card now.
Without a fuss
Hte.... That was how I always thought it must finish..... One of the main oppositions to mining phulbari has always been the local's belief that a foreign company (Gcm) are stealing the crown jewels.
. Now with domestic demand for coal soaring, people realise that all the coal will be used in Bangladesh and not exported, but they still don't like it that the licence belongs to a foriegner.
.. To be able to sell this to the people Hasina must get her hands on the licence. Only then can she convince the farmers to give up their land for the good of the country, as all the benefits come back to Bangladesh.
... Yes she will have to jv with power China, but China are already deeply involved in Bang, and will be accepted by the people with a fuss.
A new loan facility would be, by far, our best option for any future funding.... Cash without immediate dilution......
... But of course a GL before the end of March is what we all really want
Ive been busy this morning and only just seen all the excellent postings this morning ----(bloody Searcher ramping again ---lol).
-----But this is the first time, in what feels like a lifetime, that Coal and Phulbari, have been mentioned in the same article.
----Even the the words "Open Pit Mining"--are being banded about.
-With an election just about to happen, lets see what Hasina has to say in response.
-If she doesn't shoot the comments down and start talking about "leaving the coal for future generations", and "growing crops on the land", then i'm going to read into it, that post election, she is about to do the biggest U Turn of her life, and OP Phulbari.
-It's a gamble, but no comment from Hasina is a positive in my book----so all eyes on the press now.
---at around 2p this is option money with a huge upside
At last..... This whole deal has been a stitch up and is a total disaster for Bangladesh.
... Every part of this contract is water tight, irreversible and totally skewed in favour of Adani.... It will cost bangladesh 2 billion dlrs a year for 25 years if they buy the electricity, and 1 billion dlrs a year for 25 years if they don't... Total extortion.
... When it was finally signed, it was left to junior paper pushers to put their signature on the line, while all the ministers that negotiated the deal, disappeared into the background... Now they blame "inexperienced staff" for signing a bad deal.
.. You couldn't make it up.
... This deal should be scrapped and heads should roll.
No need for "director buys" -then.
The reliance on imports has caused a runaway train of fx drain and ballooning debt. Even now by mining own coal, the fx saved by not importing will be mostly swallowed in in servicing their national debt.
. Contracts, with the likes of Adani in India, are tying banglas hands long into the future... Just money down the drain.... Twenty years of financial and energy mismanagement, are now bringing the country to its knees.
.. How on the earth do they ever put this right now.
There is article after article in the Bangla press, all saying the same thing.... Coal consumption in Bangla is just going to continue to increase..... 2 mill tonnes in 2020 rose to 12 mill tonnes in 2023....it is forecast to rise to 19 mill tonnes by 2026 and 30 mill tonnes by 2030....They cannot continue to rely on importing anywhere near those sort of numbers.... Underground mining from any new fields would only scratch the surface in supplying those shortfall....These sorts of pressures will finally prove that Phulbari is the only answer,....... but will Gcm still have the licence by the time the GL is given
---"Until 2020, coal consumption for power generation was only 1 million tonnes per annum. But the consumption is going to increase to 12 million tonnes within next year if the completed plants run at full capacity and coal consumption could cross 30 million tonnes if all 15 projects come in operation."
-They most definitely cannot afford to import those sort of amounts---they MUST---mine Phulbari
As you say Searcher, two neighbouring countries both using coal to produce power... One manages to produce the cheapest power using coal, while the other pays through the nose for imported coal, and either has to stop production when the FX runs out, or produces power at top dollar.
... When will Bangla wake up to reality and start using their own coal... Maybe pressure from the IMF will finally force a change, as the loans stop.
The only ything that is " live" and could have an effect on us at this stage, is the Gas Sales.
. Are we getting really squeezed by the Mor Gov, and giving the gas away at next to nothing.
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. Just a guess
Good morning Fusion-----like most who are still invested here, I just live in hope, and all of our postings really don't alter things.-----Either Bangla will mine and use its own coal, or it won't, and they will carry on importing.
-But one thing does need stating, and it goes with this comment of yours.
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-----" Bangladesh is very close to the water table and suffers from flooding more than most countries and using copious amounts of coal isn't going to help that,"
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--Bangla are using coal, and they have committed to too many CFPP now to change n the near future.-----Plants at Rampal, and Payra ect have only just been commissioned, and they will not be shut down in the immediate future----so Bangla will be using coal.
-The point is, --no matter where that coal comes from, Bangla still needs it and they will continue to rely on it for a long time yet.
-If they mine and use coal from Phulbari---it doesn't mean that they are using MORE coal--
it just means that they are using differently sourced coal.
-In fact with the higher quality of coal from Phulbari against the imported rubbish from Indonesia and India, they may well use LESS than they are at present.
Thank you for that Jimmy, and as always your research is second to none.
. You know the only thing you and I disagree on is timing.
... Let's hope the onshore surprises us and supplies some excitement.
We may well get some sort of a bounce from here, but that is all it can be.--
-There will be various spikes and peaks, but there will be no major uplift in the SP until we get much closer to production.
----Buy on a find---Sell on a mine.
-From here on in, we know what is coming----or at least we know what we are Expecting to come.----All of those expectations now need to be met, or the SP will go down.
-Drill results from both onshore and offshore, need to meet all the analysis done by the likes of Jimmy, just to manage our expectations.
--Development to production, is a well trodden path and all the steps are known----Fid---Production wells--Pipe design---Pipe build ---Etc Etc,--- every step is necessary, planned for, and fully anticipated, none of it should come as any great surprise now, and on their own, none of the next steps should cause a major SP uplift---just some spikes.
----it's all in the SP already (just like the JV was )
----If the onshore gamble cannot be brought to very quick production, (we must wait for the drill results in Q1/2 next year, and hope they are up to mustard ), then we will have to sit and wait until H2 26 for our offshore gas to start earning us any revenue.
-As things stand, we have had our run of exploration, and excitement, --now we are in the mundane work of bringing it all together, and that takes time (H2...26).,
-All eyes are now on the Onshore work, to see if it can bring early gold.
-Other than that,---its now all in the price and we must wait.
-Plenty of time to buy in here
---So where are we now
-In some ways, we are back a few paces---and before I get shot down let me explain.
---It's still all about first gas and revenue.
-Onshore--that is down to Exploration drilling, and "hoping" that our seismic work is correct.-If this all works out, then onshore could turn out to be our first revenue----but it is all unproven at this stage, and as such is very much stage one (but with a bit of readthrough from Anch).
-Offshore---we now wait for a new well to be drilled (Anch 4) and "hope" that results are as expected.
-Only after these drill results will FID be completed---so again we going back a pace or two to exploration , and even though we should have a virtual 100% cos, you can never take anything in exploration for granted, hence the FID and further investment decisions will depend on proven results.
----Gas Sales continue to be negotiated and my conclude even before this drilling---but that is no certainty, and in truth will not alter our first gas/revenue at this stage.,
-So it does look like our next moves will depend, once again, on upcoming drill results--something most of us had hoped was firmly behind us now.
----Production is now being talked about for two years after FID --- (I'll have another listen to that, to make sure I heard it right)-----and if that's right then we are looking at mid 2026 and not the 24/5 the Co hoped for in the beginning, ----- again being two and half years forward, ---that date could change either way, so should be taken with a large pinch of salt.
-So yes to me, it feels like we have backwards a tad, and we must now wait on drilling results all over again.
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-Still plenty of time to buy into this
2 years after FID to build up the project to production
Great bit of realism Surfit----