@fooca Replying to your LLL post...

@fooca Replying to your LLL post (https://hotcopper.com.au/posts/69754951/single) here.

Might need your help interpreting the Aware letters, as I get a bit confused with the FFX narrative

Here's what I read:



So:

• A contractor responsible for Morila and Satellite Pit Mining was using older equipment, and had delays due to ECOWAS sanctions (delays that apparently weren't recognised as meaningfully impacting performance until the last week of June). They were required to deploy additional plant and equipment and commercial action was initiated.
• Given that the Morila and Satellite Pit Mining contract was awarded to MEIM, we assume this to be MEIM.
• It is stated that the performance issues were identified in February 2022.
• A new contractor was brought in with a separate mining fleet. This contractor was "an additional local contractor that was
  not linked to an ECOWAS jurisdiction". They focused on operating at the Viper satellite pit.
• Despite all this, we were still prepared to offer MEIM a substantial stake in the company, apparently to resolve existing liabilities to them and to fund continuing work

We know that in August 2021 a separate local contractor, EGTF, was still engaged on the Viper pit to prepare it despite MEIM being awarded the contract. Keeping both on was noted as a move to accelerate operations.

EGTF appears to have been successfully involved in Morila for many years, prior to FFX's purchase. EGTF or l'Entreprise Générale Traoré & Frères (the General Company of Traoré and Brothers) also seems to be a very generous and community-minded organisation, with news stories of donating its time and money to build an important bridge for a village, and more recently in April 2023 partnering with the Ministry of Water, Mines, and Energy (under former Minister Lamine Seydou Traoré) to donate food to war widows and injured veterans.

We can see EGTF continued to be engaged through the December quarter.


They also seem to have commenced work at N'Tiola in March, despite this also being awarded to MEIM.


Notably, the company reported EGTF being awarded additional contracts due to their successful performance, rather than as a result of underperformance by MEIM that it was apparently aware of from February.

Indeed MEIM are not mentioned at all in this Morila Production Update despite being the major contractor.

I presume given this long history of EGTF's involvement that the ASX Aware statement reference to a "new local contractor not linked to an ECOWAS jurisdiction" cannot refer to EGTF. So there was a third contractor mining in addition to EGTF and MEIM?

And they were from, what Mauritania or Algeria, being the only two "local" countries I can see outside ECOWAS?

And if all it took to step around ECOWAS sanctions was a company operating, but not domiciled in ECOWAS, why couldn't the Portuguese Mota-Engil have resolved the import issues?

And despite EGTF apparently being the higher performer, it's the IMS part of MEIM that continues to work at Goulamina for LLL?