Member Info for taufour

I wondered if by looking at rainfall data for last year and this year, at a series of places along the Araguaia river, one could get a sense of how the transition from wet to dry season progresses.

I know some people are not interested but I think some would be and it is relevant, given that recent RNS explicitly linked start of "main earthworks" to the start of the dry season in early Q2.

The link between rainfall and wet/dry conditions on the ground is complex ... I'd guess that a major determinant of when to start heavy work would be moving heavy vehicles over unsurfaced roads, and one can't measure that just from rainfall data.

Nevertheless, rainfall data would hopefully give a first approximation to actual conditions.

The app at http://luku.org/rain/ takes nine hops downriver from Torixoreu (latitude 16S, 600 miles upstream) to the Horizonte nickel project area (latitude 7S), each hop being about a degree of latitude (70 miles).

The space bar toggles between this year's data (last 100 days) and last year's (last 100 and next 60 days)

Shift+space takes a hop downriver (or back to the top)

My first impression is that in the upper reaches of the Araguaia river the dry season arrived by the end of March, and the transition from wet to dry is moving steadily downstream at a stately 1 mph, or a little less, like a slow barge.

Added year (2021 or 2022) and location chooser. Locations are

Araguaia South
Araguaia North
Vermelho
Xinguara (40m W of Araguaia North, nearby town, grid connection)
Conceicao do Araguaia (30m S of Araguaia South, office location)
Sao Felix do Araguaia (270m S of Araguaia South upriver for comparison)
London
Patna, India (different kind of rainy season)
Kandy, Ceylon (ditto)
Lhasa, Tibet (for good measure)

Choosing a location of interest, one can compare it with the same location in a different year, or with a different location in the same year.

(One can also compare it with a different location in a different year, but that would not usually be terribly meaningful)

One more bit of detail, the aggregate rainfall for those 127 days when it rained less than a millimetre is 16.5 millimetres, i.e. an average of just over 1/8 of a millimetre per day.

Hi pickedpeck "it rains almost every day in the dry(er) season"

Depends on what you count as rain. I would say that less than a millimetre is basically nothing.

Last year at Araguaia South there were 127 days on which it rained less than a millimetre.

Oddly enough, these days were all in the dry season, except for two (Jan 7th and Oct 29th).

The dry season at Araguaia really is dry.

The rain page at luku.org/rain/ has become a little more interactive.

It compares rainfall data last year with this year at the Araguaia Nickel South site. Initially it shows last year; if you tap the space bar it toggles to and fro between last year and this year (or rather, year-to-date)

If your keyboard has auto-repeat, then holding the space bar down makes it toggle rapidly between last year and this year, which gives a vivid idea of how rainfall compares between the years.

I hope to add some more locations and date periods.

"is this of interest? no..." You must be kidding. It (weather stuff) is of great interest.

Over the next few weeks rainfall at Araguaia will tail off with the onset of the dry season.

Preparatory work which can be done in still-wet weather is hopefully already under way but recent RNS links the start of the "main earthworks" to the start of the dry season in early Q2.

I will be looking at the weather daily. And posting about it unless/until I am run off the forum.

It will be interesting to track rainfall at the various sites (Araguaia South and North, perhaps even Vermelho for a forward looking taster) and also at Conceicao where they have a site office and perhaps sometimes permit themselves a few moments of looking out of the window at the rain and contemplating the feeling of Saudade (a bitter sweet longing for the return of the dry season).

Hi craigie "Handy link for those staying for the build"

As the crow flies, Formoso do Araguaia is 270 miles south of the HZM Araguaia project (a bit further than London to Newcastle)

You might be thinking of Floresta do Araguaia (30 miles south of the project)

... not that the weather would necessarily be vastly different ...

but I think the dry season tends to arrive a couple of weeks earlier in Formoso than in Floresta.

I'm getting that there are two schools of thought about this:

either (1) LME did the wrong thing, or (2) LME did the right thing but in the wrong way.

Actually better take that data with a pinch of salt for the time being ... the app is getting weather data from the free service at visualcrossing.com ... I simply entered the lat and long of Araguaia but the server isn't being very forthcoming about how far away the nearest weather station is ... trying to find out! Lucky thing it's April 1st

Hopefully there will be signs of the onset of dry season this month. The page at luku.org/rain/ shows preceding 60 days of rainfall and forecast for next 2 days at Conceicao do Araguaia, which is the local town. Welcome to Q2.

I would have thought 'early Q2' should mean April. Like 'mid Q2' would be May and 'late Q2' would be June.

I mean what is language for, if not for making neat distinctions like that.

Well, look at this: "With early works underway we look forward to site ground-breaking and the main earthworks commencing at the beginning of the dry season in early Q2" (RNS 25th Feb)

but according to the Araguaia FS (November 2018) "The dry season from June to October is followed by heavy rain from November to May, with an annual rainfall of around 2,000 mm."

There is an untranslatable Portuguese concept called Saudade which could explain this discrepancy.

'The state of mind has subsequently become a "Portuguese way of life": a constant feeling of absence, the sadness of something that's missing, wistful longing for completeness or wholeness. Saudade describes a feeling both happy and sad, and could be approximated by the English expression bitter sweet.

The lost two months..

I like the title of this thread. Being the worrying type, it crossed my mind a few times in Jan and Feb that there could be a glitch. The Dec 29th RNS concluded as follows:

"Ongoing documentation with the two export credit agencies is due for completion in early Q1 2022. First drawdown under the Senior Debt Facility is expected to occur in the fourth quarter of 2022 following satisfaction of certain conditions precedent customary to a financing of this nature, including the issuance of the export credit agency guarantees."

and it occurred to me, even back then, that they didn't actually *have* to include the last 9 words ... someone must have asked themselves whether the last 9 words should be included, and decided impeccably that the answer was yes.

So you can imagine my relief when the "early Q1" RNS finally arrived on March 16th.

I would simply point out that in Jan and Feb I didn't utter a word about this.

kkkrrr: "not of interest.."

It is of very great interest, and should be so even to people who cannot think about anything except HZM. It is a tremendous saga, and will likely have effects on the institutional frameworks involved in the metals market, and will stay relevant when HZM is producing.

Apologies for the broken state (since last Monday) of the vanadium price lister at http://luku.org/am/?m=vanadium

It would be fun to have been able to say that big numbers this week blew it out of the water, but the truth is more mundane - it simply broke.

Now fixed.

What is it, you may ask? It lists the most recent few days of vanadium prices from Asian Metal, with a view to showing trends. The Asian Metal website by itself only gives percentage changes; it is useful to see the actual numbers.

Hello Jessielee, "I think all the unknown are buys anybody any thoughts on this"

I hope that half of them are buys and half are sells.

Very tight actual spread now

At HL, sell 6.60, buy 6.6875

Recent activity around 6.70 (presumably including this: 24-Feb-22 11:59:41 6.70 500,000)

are buys, not sells (despite the notional spread being quoted as 6.60 - 6.90)

HL is currently flogging these things at 6.69

Hi Philos, "Why is this expected: ‘BNEF forecasts nickel could see a decline in prices by the second half of next year.’"

I think they are taking their cue from the December 15 Investing News report, "In the near term in China, LFP will potentially reduce nickel demand, but longer term there is still a growth story."

and

"despite the future demand expected from batteries, stainless steel remains the main driver of nickel demand, and will continue to be key for the market into 2022."

Feel free to disagree with them! (I do)

OK thanks. I haven't got my point across but it's not important enough to clog up the forum with.

The point is, can anyone come up with a quote that says there is no discount.