Member Info for rickyroman

….its very easy to be uber positive and say yes, yes, yes...everything is moving along fine BUT...we have heard nothing of significance now for six months and this was a project conceived in early 2017.
The Bara fiasco was the perfect opportunity for Nasrul Hamid to step in and get things moving, firing the entire management and installing a Chinese mining team, In effect, a pre-cursor to announcing the Phulbari project was GO.

What happens - NOTHING.

Feeble excuses about committees, and then the half-wit idea of moving 100,000 tonnes of coal - landed at a harbour which doesn't exist, moving it with trucks which are not there and being completely shafted by the supplier with it costing $200 per tonne. Oh yes, and not actually using it - just keep it in reserve. What coal - nice Columbian from Glencore, high calorific / low sulphur from Australia or Anglo Americans mines in South Africa - Nope - dodgy stuff from India at a rip-off price.

Its 12 years since the Phulbari Incident, no coal policy, no mine and the existing mine and power station shut, because the employees stole the coal (good bit of alliteration)

I now have little or no faith in this project ever happening and await Michael Tangs next announcement - I just hope he has sold the licence and we can forget about Bangla forever.

….the more I thought about the Bara theft, the more I thought that the tentacles of this crime went further and further into regional government.
This wasn't a few locals turning up with a Transit van and taking a couple of tonnes here and a couple of tonnes there. This huge theft was allowed to continue, so as to line the pockets of various plant managers and 'officials' further up the food chain. It is just the level of arrant stupidity which is so baffling - they stole the lot !!
The Chinese (from memory) are part owners of Barakuparia…..were they the whistleblowers after all..?. I don't think we know half the facts, but I expect CGGC, if they can get access, are looking closely at operations at the mine and the culture of the area.

…..by not authorising the Coal Policy for nearly a decade, Hasina has side-stepped any criticism by her electorate. I' didn't authorise it, so I'm not responsible for the civil unrest etc.....

I'm getting a little concerned at the lack of progress and my own thinking is that CGGC are going to pull out and we will have some new 'mealy mouthed' RNS from Tang saying that they are actively pursuing 'other partners' for the project.
No GP, I am not shorting the stock, I think these negotiations have now gone on too long.

….Gooner, there used to be some strange chappy called PigeonPie who used to frequent these boards. He knew nothing, just like your current nemesis cheekychappy. Their giveaway is that they struggle to put a full sentence together.

The winner here is going to be the person who spots a nugget of information before the market realises - Nasirul and FatherJS seem to be fairly well tuned in .

After Christmas - yeh, which Christmas....

26th Aug…..no doubt local agitators will be trying to drum up support for their own agenda.

The total lack of communication from Michael Tang is surprising, but maybe Nasrul Hamid / Energy Team have deliberately asked for an embargo on any announcements until the Govt is ready.
Pure guesswork for now.

Informative post. Interesting that the region has such little clout politically with just six seats in the chamber.

Barapukuria must be a line in the sand, the theft of the coal shutting down the area's sole power station, is laughable if it was not so sad. I hope you are right about some imminent news.

...though not tempted to buy more until I see some concrete evidence of progress.
We wait..

...rioting students, thugs from the Awami League beating up the students and armed men attacking the US ambassador 's car. Giving the go-ahead on a controversial coal mine will be an absolute No No for Hasina now......Our Chinese partner may soon lose patience.

….a serious consultancy, glad to see the Banglas have spent some $$$ and got the professionals in.

On the face of it, with either 4% or 75-90% recovery rates, its a complete 'no-brainer' - but, this is Bangladesh and who knows what thinking will come into play.
The biggest positive has to be the 'contrived convenience' of events - Gas in total disarray, mega projects running years behind schedule......then all of a sudden Barapukuria is in the spotlight - stolen / non-existent coal, appalling productivity levels (only 10 million tonnes mined in thirteen years), strikes....then along come John T Boyd with a plan of how to do it properly and all the time Bejing waiting in the wings with finance, expertise and a licence to mine.

All a bit of a coincidence...……??

….while the government and officialdom are fumbling about in the dark, this board has well and truly nailed it - we highlighted that it was logistically impossible to import the coal and deliver it to Bara in the required quantities, for Bangla to even pay for it, the 'quality of coal issues' and where it could come from - Australia Yes....India No and the lack of stockpile for emergencies...

C'mon Hasina, you need us to sort this out...….. (slightly tongue in cheek)

...You obviously have considerable knowledge of Bangladesh - welcome to this board on behalf of all the long-suffering but optimistic posters.....

...the only thing which does not stack up, is the empty yard. If you have got a great scam going then you do your utmost to nurture it and not get caught. The boilers for the generator(s) need XXX tonnes per day. Productivity at the mine was pretty dire at (from memory) a million tonnes per year, so with a captive client it must have been fairly straightforward to match production to sales or vice versa. The customer (the power station. will have wanted a reasonable level of back-up stock (100,000 tonnes). So what happened, did the perpetrators of the scam just get careless and (stupid) and didn't realise a stockpile HAD to exist and instead they pinched it all and got caught.

If some sort of physical evidence of coal had existed (maybe 50,000 tonnes) perhaps they would have got away with it....a bit of bluster with the Petrobangla internal auditors....Who knows.??

I was just reading about the death of the chief engineer on the Renaissance dam project in Ethiopia. Sadly, it appears he was the victim of a contract killer.

The dam will have a 6000MW power generation capability - according to the BBC correspondent, the same as SIX nuclear power stations. 6000MW was the (potential) figure bandied around by Michael Tang - that is some fair wallop of power fuelled by Phulbari.

...thanks, I'll check that out......I used to catch a train to go to school and would see these odd looking vehicles shunting around in the goods yard towing trailers. I think they were bright yellow.

….ha ha ha...you really couldn't make it up...

…..all nonsense. No-one there has a clue about what to do and in typical fashion, they have formed a committee.
Probably turns out that one of the committee members, has a brother with a small trucking company with a few of those ex-British Rail three-wheeled trucks we used to see as kids, working in the goods yards.
Never mind transporting the stuff, they have to source and pay for it. Imagine the cost by the time it gets to the power station with all the 'additional fees', it would be about double he market rate of $120 / tonne.

The committee needs to place an advert quickly for an international management team to get into Bara, sort it and get production running again. Not Bangla 'have a goers; but skilled mining engineers.
To every problem there is a solution - now make a decision.

Nasirul - good idea.
With regards to Mr Lye, he is a salaried employee and to be brutally honest, has achieved 'diddly squat' in the decade he has been in Phulbari.
Its no good Michael Tang saying that everything is going to be fine in a year and the SP continues to tank......maybe, at this rate, my flippant 3p is not going to be too wide of the mark.
Information - s'il vous plait !!

...could have been 15p, could be 3p. Its all the same as no-one is any more or less wiser than another.
I think that Michael Tang is being a little foolish here with his total lack of news or updates.
Over on ADVFN they are banging on about rights issues and share dilutions - ' it ain't going to happen' .....he would never get away with another fundraising in the current climate unless he had a very good story to tell.
The BCMCL / Petrobangla situation, though typical of Bangla, is probably going to muddy the waters for a while.

An observation post from Gary Lye, would not be amiss - he's on the ground there, drawing a salary, probably doing very little all day.....

…..the 'committee' will ponce about for a fortnight, find the problem of theft is far greater than anticipated, fire the incumbent board and then try to find temporary management staff to re-start operations.

Here was a perfect opportunity to wave a big stick and say to the locals, time for a change,

Of course, nothing will happen and nothing done to improve the Bara facility or power station. If they are lucky, may achieve 150MW from the generator by year end (capacity 500MW) and the whole incident will be forgotten..
We've a long wait girls & boys,

….sadly, you have nailed it - with infrastructure project of this magnitude, they are completely out of their depths...….yet, for the Chinese engineers, this would be a walk in the park. Let them get on with it Hasina !!