agm notes

How would I sum up this years AGM, subdued with a some underlying tension regarding the PP shares, that at times threatened to break out.

I will not cover the PP part of the meeting in my post, as I will leave this to others, except to say that it was advised that there will be an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) held by the middle of next year regarding this issue. Issues to be considered will be the cancellation of the PP that are over 10 years old and a possible new scheme will be introduced and voted on.

Earlier this year I had been hoping for that at the very least we would be well into the commissioning stage if not producing at a reduced state that is required by the current EPA licence.

Unfortunately, as we all know we are still in the final construction and early commissioning stages. In fact JW did not attend the AGM as he was needed at the NIRP site.

MT started out with the comment that it has been an interesting year, and an overview of the year that is covered in slides 4 and 5 of the AGM presentation

MT advised that modifications were implemented in the mill scale handling area for safety purposes and to reduce the dust component. This included ensuring that the foreign objects such as gloves and pieces of wood etc were removed from the the mill scale and ensuring the mill scale was the correct size.

When pushed for a completion timeline MT said he could not give a definitive timeline as the whole plant is a prototype, and things such as the mill scale issue and the fact that between 4 and 5 weeks will be lost over Christmas make it difficult to define, but he is confident that the plant will be well into commissioning in the 1st quarter of next year.

One thing that I found interesting is the fact that the need for the briquette component seems to be less important, as the quality of the iron produced is such that it could command a premium of $200 to $300 per tonne more if supplied to foundries as chips, than the value if briquettes were supplied to a steel mill. I think the figure quoted was $600 to $700 per tonne and up to $1000 per tonne.

To date CMC has delivered both bagged and bulk mill scale, and that the plant has storage capacity for 800 tonnes of mill scale. When the plant is up and running it can process approximately 3 tonnes per hour.

From what I understand and I can be corrected, the tower construction is not totally finished and the manufacture of some refractory material is still taking place. I think this is for the HCL absorption and gas scrubbing columns show on slide 22 of the presentation.


MT mentioned something that I had not heard before, that before commencing the litigation APG had been in negotiations with Kronos for $6.5 million funding, and that obviously did not occur.

MT indicated that APG's main focus when attempting to market the EARS technology will be in the US, I suspect as it will be easier to protect the intellectual property.

In answer to a question, as to the cost of the waste, MT stated that during the first stage APG is not required to pay for the waste. Clean mill scale can cost up to $17 per tonne, as it can be utilized by steel plants that have a certain plant, the name of which escapes me.
In any case APG will focus on oily mill scale that is expensive to dispose. The figure of $2K to $3K per tonne was mentioned for disposing the waste from galvanisers.

It was mentioned again that lab scale testing has indicated that APG technology , will work effectively for mixed oxide dusts and mixed chloride liquors.

As mentioned in previous years the initial EPA licence will restrict the output of the plant until the monitoring of the site indicates that there will be no issues. What this means is that the plant will be able to operate for short bursts at full capacity to get the emission readings and conduct the commissioning. When it can be proved that the emissions are within the required levels then they can progress to get approval for full scale production. MT has indicated that he does not see any hurdles.

The same programmer who worked on the successful operating software for the ERMS/EARS demo plant is now working on the software for the NIRP plant.

In an answer to a question regarding patents, MT advised much the same as last year, the the original EARS patent has expired but that the process has changed and they are in the process of application of a new patent for iron chloride to pellet component that will cover 20 years.

MT indicated that the NIRP is about the same size as the plant that would be utilized by say BlueScope at Woolongong, that is say a middle sized steel plant with about 35,000 tonnes of pickle liquor. It is also larger than the one that would be required by the interested US plant.

When asked how he would see APG in 12 months time, MT indicated that he would see the NIRP working at full scale, and the indicated the interest mentioned regarding the US steel plant needing the replacement very soon for their current recycling plant, and excited by the fact they will also be able to recycle their waste.
The potential for the interest from the Australian company in recovering iron from the fine oxide waste dump and the fact that other steel mills are interested as well as the two very interested titanium sponge companies was also highlighted.

MT again indicated that he is holding off any other inquiries until the plant is up and running, as there is really nothing to demonstrate until the NIRP is up and running. Also it ensures that the company can get the maximum value from any negotiations.

One final thing to note from the post meeting drinks is the the ongoing work by Mike Smith regarding the air core drilling in Victoria. I was very impressed by his low cost approach and this still could turn out to be a very exciting result for APG.

It was nice to put some more faces to names in today meeting, greetings to SevenofNine, foulthrow, desperate, ronsterm and Rickaroonie.

Even though I am getting tired of saying this, lets hope next year lives up to it promise.