The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
> this now says "under issuance of NTP/LOI" I am sure that used to say it was work in progress.....anyone else remember?
The Wayback project[1] remembers; that bullet point was added April-May 2018.
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20180509005653/http://cpec.gov.pk/project-details/25 and the previous snapshot in April didn't have it. From http://web.archive.org (web dot archive dot org in case the links are removed).
> Another one filtered TastySalmon
a) you already said you'd filtered me when I first joined
b) Why do you think people care who you filter? Do you have unusual insight about people's motives that nobody else has? It just looks like you've invested too much too high, and are panicky and sticking your fingers in your ears whenever someone says something you don't want to hear.
c) Hi. I predict you are going to read this despite what you say about filtering.
> Upto 2 years to start construction i still think is a reasonable timeframe. There is a lot to get done between applying for a LOI, getting $3billion of funding and starting construction.
If we both agree there's a lot to be done before construction, then we must agree there will be people doing it - are we only disagreeing about whether that counts as "boots on ground"? I'm only saying it does because the CEO said that, but I don't think that means construction any time within 12 months.
> Unless of course you are Jimiam in his echo chamber shouting 5p tomorrow to himself all day long.
How can I be both Jimiam shouting for 5p tomorrow, and filtered by Jimiam for being a negative deramper? I'm hoping for a spike somewhere over 1p around the end of the month, but not expecting it to last more than a few hours if it happens at all. Then I'm predicting quiet and a drifting share price punctuated by quarterly shareholder update meetings where hopefully it gets gradually derisked over 2-4 quarters, leading to actual mining equipment orders and foundations being dug and a renewed burst of interest and activity around then.
Asking what power the LOI has, was not making a point either way, it was simply asking what power it has. Re-reading the RNSs, I can't find where I connected it with decision making, but I can find them being mentioned next to each other and think I've imagined the connection, fwiw.
> Where's Caspar gone?
"*i have decided to stay away from posting here on this bb due to personal reasons.*" - 7th April 2020 08:56 if you want to find his post.
> For me, this is the time to buy and hold if you can and let things fall into place slowly. Try and forget about the daily SP (harder said than done) and just wait for things to happen.
If I wait long enough maybe GKP will go back up to £150/share. I like the signs of progress here, but I'll be watching the daily SP until the end of the month, the JCC meeting and the resulting signoff (or delay) news. After that, I can put it down and come back nearer the end of the year.
> Okay whats your prediction to build then? 12-18 months finance, then you actually need to get the people on the ground... within 2 years, allowing slippage is not unreasonable.
It's Ms Memon who said they don't need to wait for the finance close to get boots on the ground; although we might be thinking of different boots, they won't be construction crews any time soon. And the CPEC Chair is adamant about them completing all projects on time, which they did for the previous two Thar block power stations. Allowing slippage is not unreasonable, but it doesn't have to go badly. It's political and financial delays which worry me more, after construction starts then a build problem means over budget and over time, more likely than cancellation.
> Without it whats the point of building it
But who would make decisions about billions of dollars on a non-binding intent from a single buyer?
It cost $50k to apply for, and they are waiting for it before signing some contracts, so it must carry some weight.
> All those saying it will boom on it. Who knows. Some people might buy on the basis its next stage along but seemingly a lot of people are waiting for that to sell.
Me included, if it goes above my buy-in price I'll try and sell some. I could afford to lose it but it's uncomfortably much to have got spiked by being clueless and careless. If I could remove a third I'd be happier - but your prediction of a short spike heavily sold into is what I expect too. Nevermind, no panic selling, check the Twitter feed of the CPEC Chairman @AsimSBajwa just this month and see CPEC projects progressing and issues resolved, motorway approval, agriculture and food security being brought into CPEC.
There was expected to be a signoff at the JCC meeting; that was waiting on the shareholding terms being settled, and that was waiting on the LOI - which was due before the JCC meeting. OK so far, except the LOI is often stated to be not legally binding, so what power does it have, and why is anything waiting on it?
One of the ADVFN posters mentions a Bankable Feasability Study; there's talk going back to 2012 or so that ORCP had a technical feasability study done, and were planning to turn it into a Bankable one - did that happen?
Most of what Google finds on the proposed railway line is newspaper sites repeating the summary of what the meeting in Feb talked about. Quick show of hands - is this more towards "China builds railway station in 9 hours" project, or more towards "HS2 from London to Birmingham"?
> hope she pulls something out the bag!! Not much confidence in her what so ever!!
I was accused of being a deramper for having a new account, but I'm just a fool who was easily parted from his money, wasn't good enough to trade-up on the spike and got impaled. Now I'm reading up to choose cut my losses or hold. Yeah maybe it will drift and fall lower, but overall it's not as bad as I feared - and she's one reason why.
Since she's taken over as CEO, they have got CPEC to re-rate the project as power + fertiliser which makes it more tempting for the government because it addresses power and food insecurities. The LOI application has been hanging around 2 years, now submitted (it's not the golden ticket, but it's movement, and progress). One reason for building a mine-mouth power station is because there's no infrastructure to deliver the coal and sell direct to the market - she's involved in talks with the government about a railway line running through Thar. Why would the government care about a railway line for a private company to sell coal for profit? Because it could also help with fertiliser and food security, it's been made more compelling for them to support. The Sheikh has been voluntarily locked in for 12 months, and much of his holding is only good above 0.5p/share, so at the end of the 12 months either he's sold at a good profit and the share price is high so I can sell too, or he's stuck with no profit and may as well help make the company better. Someone is paying attention - maybe to ADME? - to arrange for that. The John C. MasterInvestor article suggests a price of 1p/share with power flowing but if they avoid more dilution while funding, maybe 2p/share. They just announced trying to avoid much more dilution. The government has said they want to push these projects forward without delay, and even an article on collapsing CPEC projects says the main ones Beijing is pushing for are power plants. Boots on the ground "very soon, literally".
Certainly waiting ten years for 1p/share is poor, and a high risk of another false dawn and corruption delays makes it worse. Waiting 4 years for 2p and it actually happens this time is more interesting. Dreamland of waiting 4 years for a production power plant, selling selling coal to market and coal ash to concrete companies using trains, genuine Sheikh contributions, urea plans in the works with more interest because they came through on the a power plant .. 's not likely, but not unthinkable.
If I'd read into them before, probably wouldn't have bought after GCM (I'm a fool, I told you). No party hats and multibagging for me, but no panic selling either. I'm interested. Watching the coming months, rooting for Ms Memon (who put £50k of her own money into it), and going to read up on the railway line proposal next.
The plan[1] was for the Sheikh to have 100M shares at 0.25p, 100M new ordinary shares[2], and 300M warrants at 0.5p usable for a couple of years, giving him a total of ~22% of the company if he wants it; so 1p wouldn't be as good as 400% after all that, more like ~200-300% depending what he does.
(Incidentally, he's worth $31Bn, no way is he hanging around AIM looking for places to invest a sixty thousandth of his wealth, hoping to sell out as soon as possible. The December "Joint Development Agreement Signed" RNS says """Going forward the Private Office and Oracle will be responsible for, amongst other things, securing all the required permits, licenses, governmental and regulatory approvals, whilst also ensuring CNCDCL are introduced to the highest Government stakeholders, Ministries, Government agencies and departments in order to enable the Parties to jointly further advance and develop the Project.""" - and there's NO way the Sheikh bought in so he can fill out permit applications, or paid in so he can introduce a Chinese company to the Pakistan government. Oracle didn't offer him a discount buy-in for humaitarian development reasons, he is bringing something to the table that I don't know - contacts, influence, who knows).
[1] RNS 28th November 2019, "Proposed Fundraise of £700,000"
[2] RNS 9th December "Holding(s) in Company" suggests that happened on 6th Dec, share price around 0.4 - 0.5p for the ordinary shares.
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-03-02/a-china-belt-and-road-project-becomes-a-corridor-to-nowhere
I like her. She is so vague ??
"When can you start construction?
"Very soon we must go on ground to do some further investigation, because our feasibilities are all in place, as I mentioned to you .. our lenders, there is a certain degree of, you know, work to be done on ground, vis-a-vis digging more holes, increasing the scope, to ascertain a few things, and so on. So that kind of work is going to start very soon, literally like, because that we can't proceed. So that work will start very soon and that will lead to the actual project. In fact we are already in the process of moving things on-ground, y'know, getting more staff on to the ground there, and so on. So things are moving in that direction."
Could there be an update (weeks/months) about things happening on ground?
> Her interview yesterfay on interactive investor. Said estimated at 2.8bill to 3.2bill usd for stage 1 mine and power plant. So she rounded to 3 given uncertainty
Got it, thanks! It's about 8 minutes into that ProactiveInvestor link video posted a bit ago. That's cost for the coal mine and power plant, all-in - plans, contractors, materials, build, everything. Then stage 2 would be the gasification and urea to fertilizer part. She says that as part of the CPEC they have access to funding "otherwise this would be impossible".
Then about funding, 9:05 in the video, interviewer asks: """How far down the track are you as far as firming up and confirming those finance discussions?"" She replies: """If all goes well then, we just need to conf.. you said it, we need to confirm the financing, I don't need the money in my pocket, the confirmation of this financing can happen quite soon because once we have the final agreement signed then the financing is confirmed, but then of course you have the lenders making sure of X, Y, Z, and so on and so forth.
Then it pretty much depends on processes and licenses and concessions etc. Once we have our final agreement in place, then the financing becomes automatic, because then it is subject to the conditions the lenders have placed, and then all the consortium partners have to fulfull their end of the deal and so on. So that process obviously takes its natural course, and its due time, but then we as a company are in a comfortable position because the fundamental arrangement is in place. Then by the time the financial close - so to speak - happens. that takes some time because, for a project of this time, the lenders need a lot of comfort."""
> CAPEX spend to get stage 1 mime off the ground is estimated at 3billion USD.
Where does that figure come from? Is there even a stage 1 anymore? In the RNS on 5th June 2019 titled "Operational Update" they said: """Based on work completed to date the Parties have now decided to develop the mine in a single phase of 8 million tonnes a year, instead of the original and ultimately more capital intensive two-phased approach"""
i.e. only one phase, and cheaper. That was the previous group of companies though.
It went on to say """Consequently, the power plant is now also intended to be developed as a single 2x660 MW unit and an application has been submitted to the Private Power Infrastructure Board on this basis. The required feasibility work relating to this refinement is being assessed with a view to determining not only the optimal revised mining plan, but also the most suitable configuration of the mine and power plant to minimise the costs of the development. """
Upcoming things could be:
- LOI, Letter of Intent which the government says that they will buy power from this project (but not legally binding). Ms Memon "hoped that would be before the JCC".
- The proposed shareholdings between China Power, HH Private Office and Oracle where Oracle has 12% are beig turned into a solid agreement, that is dependent on the LOI before it will be signed, and was also hoped to be around the time of the JCC.
- The JCC is a regular meeting between China and Pakistan about CPEC projects, Beijing "requested the JCC to happen sooner than the scheduled June/July date".
- June 2019 was their RNS for annual results/review of 2018, could happen again.
- July 2019 was their AGM.
- The next of these Quarterly Shareholder Meetings in ~3 months from this one(?)
Much of this was upcoming this time last year, and in 2018, with the MOU between Oracle and a different Chinese company, them expected to sort funding, with plans to be in the construction phase by 2019 and producing electricity by 2022. Anyone know how/why that broke up?
Ms Memon was Chair of the Sindh Government Investment Board for years before this, was a Financial Advisor for Merril Lynch, lives in Pakistan, and has somehow got HH The Sheikh involved, a new Chinese company, a new board member with mining experience, their project added to the CPEC projects (which has at least two completed Thar coal mines, on time or ahead of time), but still ~2024 after a 3 year build after the funding.
Anyone know if they could get the open pit mine running sooner, and sell coal to the market while the power plant is being built, or if they've talked about that?