Oh, for fork sake, are you guys for real? I have only just got off the phone with Peter like a couple of hours ago.
So, for the record, it was not yours truly, Shellbell, selling that caused the high-volume sell-off. It is merely an overly negative market!!! I still have my container load of BSM shares. If you think I would even act on information from Peter, you are sadly mistaken. I have a trading parcel as well as a very significant holding parcel.
If I was out to dud you, I simply would NOT have openly revealed my trading activity which, I might add, is miniscule compared to the size of my overall investment. The HC vacuous echo chamber here sure is at work and I am only away from it for 3/4 of a day. Sheeshh.
The phone conversation with Peter went as expected...."We are in the speculative end of the market and need to expect the volatility in share price"... to use my own words. It's pretty much in line with my inferred previous posts that we (the jaded in-the-red holders) need to view Basss's achievements, progress and goals from a fresh mindset (as if from the pov of prospective investor). It is a medium-to-long term investment (on anyone's part) investing in this sector and in a "start-up" company in a third world country. The achievements to date, nonetheless, are to be commended based on the capital outlay to date.
I tried to "pin" Peter down on the perceived negatives without sinking the gauntlet in too deep only to discover that we have worn him down with our negativity and exposed how close some of us have come to defamation suits... and rightly so. Needless to say, I did not get very far in getting our "perceived" negatives addressed.
He convinced me of the blatant untruths and the unfactual statements that have permeated here on HC of late. So, for the record, some need to be awfully careful with what is stated. It's a public forum, fair enough, but we are pushing the boundaries. Bitmojies of "piles of poo with ribbons on" is acceptable. Peter is thick-skinned and doesn't take a bit of humour too seriously... the rest of the board, well, I don't know and don't wish to test it to any further degree.
Peter was as frank and honest as he could be within the bounds of the disclosure laws. What I gleaned from our one-hour-conversation is that the market is negative fullstop across all speculative small companies, but that Bass should not be held in this same "penny dreadful" arena (again to use my own or rather Dr E's words).
He explained a lot of the facts as to why we should be positive and not negative. He is simply dumbfounded to explain why the negativity and the shareprice persists where it as right now. The broader market has been unforgiving on small-cap stocks since the middle of last year... pretty simple. I agreed with him, and still do, that there were a lot of positives in the Sales & Exports update, which the market seemed to ignore.
In context of the comparisons to where shareprices and capexes are at with other companies in the same industry, we have no grounds upon which to criticise the company. With an comparitively low outlay, Bass has delivered a fully recommissioned graphite company now at nameplate production. It is now a high nameplate quantity, but the fact that 40% of it is in the Large and Jumbo price category, the market should be impressed (again to use my own words).
As for the expectation of running at nameplate production rates from the get-go, well, that is an assumption we (the holders in red) made. According to Peter, we were and still are in ramp-up stage following nameplate achievement. I believe I made reference to the fact that it would have been naive to expect that tweaking and unanticipated hiccups wouldn't be a part of that post-nameplate stage. I was certainly not of that expectation at the time, but that fact is part of the risk taken in investing or trading in this speculative end of the ASX. Peter assured me that Bass had indeed met its statutory disclosure requirements throughout the process of recommissioning and still do. I am no expert in that field, far from it, and so have to take his expert word on that mattter.
We are to expect all the production deets in the upcoming Quarterlies. The Sales & Exports update was exactly that... about sales and exports. The numbers relating to production will be in the upcoming Quarterly Activities Report. I am expecting a particularly good third and fourth quarterly, just as the Sales & Export Report indicated... perhaps the reason for today's selloff... expectation of low production results as stated in the S&E update.
Now, the subject of pricing and volumes is to a certain extent always going to have to be undisclosed information, according to Peter, in order to meet Bass's obligations to their buyers. ASX's disclosure regulationes nearly jeopardised our offtake contract with Possehl. It is apparent that there exists a very clandestine state re pricing within the graphite industry, unlike say iron ore, which restricts what can be disclosed to the market. Buyers do not want it know to their competitors what price they are paying and to whom for their graphite. I am willing to accept that. Stevo, please don't try to read anything potentially negative into that, please, for your sake!
Blythefan, it seems that you will just have to contact, Peter Wright, yourself, regarding your costings/revenue breakdown. He is happy to take a look at it, but obviously not "via" me, which is a fair enough stance. In fact, he stated that he is happy to talk to anyone who phones or emails him.
That's the facts and the sentiment of the conversation (and hope well within defamation definitions). It is not a turd with a ribbon on it, but it is the truth as best as I can convey it!
I am going offline for a long-earned rest if my curiosity allows me to ignore you lot, that is. I will read your responses, but do will my best for my sanity's sake not to respond.
Cheers
Shellbell (who btw is not a man)
