Hi Ken,
Always good to hear from you.
While the report may be 31st Dec 2022 it would have been written in the last month(s).They had the benefit of hindsight to include in the report noting the section "EVENTS SUBSEQUENT TO REPORTING DATE". These reports are refined and refined until hours before they are submitted to the ASX – in fact it was signed off a week ago on 10th March.
My reading of:
“Community Briefings On 9-10 November 2022, LMG organised meetings with the Community and Investors on site briefing to inform them of the progress made on the development of the project, report on the emissions and other matters. Another briefing will be planned in 2023 when the demonstration plant has been completed and commissioned. This is expected by the end of September2023. LMG believes in having a social licence with the Community in which it operates.”
is that the next community briefing would be held in sept-23. Note myunderlining. At the worst interpretation, there would be full commissioning bySept-23 which means it would have to be completed some months before. Thecommissioning process can take a while.
This part of the Director’s Report concerns me:
“The current project schedule indicates that most if not all theequipment will be on site before 30 June 2023 and it all being drycommissioned. The current budget is $41.7 million with $31.3 million havingbeen contracted or committed and the remaining uncommitted $10.4 million mainlyrelating to construction and commissioning services. The bulk of these serviceswill be finalised before 30 June 2023”
Most if not all the equipment will be on site by June 23 indicates to me that the components will be on site by then (well most of them) with those components undergoing some dry testing. Then they have to install/assemble them and commission the plant within 3 months?? I find it very confusing. They will have drawn $20M of the $23M by end of March(this month). They begin paying interest on drawdown. However, I find it very unclear where we are at on the construction schedule.
In addition, the Regional Development Grant is conditional on meeting milestones in 2023 and if the schedule is changing will LMG meet those milestones?
I agree that the report is very poorly written and they need someone with a reasonable command of the English language to review it for ambiguity and clarity. Val1claimed in a phone call to DP that LMG would release an update on 16thMarch – nothing yesterday and looking unlikely today. If that was another date blunder on DP’s part it’s a worry.
I am beginning to get the impression that the report was a box ticking exercise with an insouciance to what is important for the market and shareholders - that said it may not be intentional.
This all lends weight to what I said earlier that DP is past his use-by-date asCEO. He keeps making these ambiguous communication blunders which do not help thecompany. Respectfully he is a septuagenarian and it is a time when many beginto have challenges with quick memory recall and self-expression(I’m not faraway from it myself!). He needs to remain on the Board and appoint a younger,sharper CEO who is more articulate and can doggedly drive this process. I amdisappointed that the other Board members have not taken him to task on hisblunders(maybe they have and we don’t know).
There, I’ve had my rant! I feel better now!
