Thanks for this detailed explanation...much appreciated!If they...

Thanks for this detailed explanation...much appreciated!

If they were so effusive in the AGM (which happens once in 12 months), did you ask them why they don't do conference calls after quarterly reports?  Instead of all of us getting second hand information from a few people who attended the AGM, won't it be better to have it all out in the open in a recorded line during a quarterly call?  That is what every other Anglo Saxon company of any repute manages to do.

Re "hedging", my opinion remains unchanged.  I think it was poorly thought out...there was needless panicking from BRL management..and now they are coming up with all kinds of excuses why it was the right strategy all along.  For a more clued in management, read up the presentations of Teck Resources in Canada, who also export coking coal.  Far more cogent explanation of why Teck does NOT hedge.  Perhaps BRL management can take courses at Teck to understand how to start to think about such matters.  As for anyone's ability to forecast commodity prices...that misses the point.  As a shareholder in a commodity company, you are, whether you like it or not, married to commodity price gyrations.  Do you really think your management knows more about commodity prices than you do?  As BRL has sadly shown...they have just thrown away 25% of excess cash flow, and console us that never mind...we made excess cash flow on the remaining 75% of our production.

Re that 76%/80% pricing...that was something of a googly.  All along, it was 80%, and then suddenly it became 76%...and now it is back to 80%?  Hmm...this probably has an innocent explanation...but 4% pricing differentials are not to be dismissed easily.  For comparison, BT Mining pays 6% of sales as vendor claw backs...and that 6% added up to $15 million in 2017-18.

I am still mystified by the lower production at Stockton today compared to when it was in its Solid Energy incarnation.  If they ran the mine 24/7, surely all it probably meant was one more solitary train during a weekend. I doubt anyone, even in tree hugging NZ, would notice a train full of junk energy, I mean coal, rumble by.  But it is an important point.  Like Rotowaro, maybe the mine life of Stockton is not what it is cracked up to be...and is a lot shorter than what we are led to believe.  Maybe smart Mr Market is really telling us this home truth, while we are all misguidedly focused on valuation?  In fact, Genesis Energy was complaining that BT Mining did not have sufficient thermal coal at one of their thermal mines, and Genesis was forced to look to import thermal coal.

And that is why the clarification on Rotowaro mine life acquires more urgency.  BRL management should come clean on this critical point.

I don't agree on the shift penalty arguments, if that is indeed what is being trotted out by BRL management.  The value of coking coal production is simply too high today, for any little penalty to stand in our way to making ever more money.  It has to be a production constraint somewhere.  Sadly, BRL is not letting on what is going.