My question is can we as SH's do anything to expedite claims on PI insurance for incompetent consultants?
My understanding from the original prospectus is that Bluechip engineering of Wangara, Perth (
http://www.bluechipengineering.com.au) did the rerfurbishment to the original design for Strategic Graphite; this was vetted by an "independent" expert Ian Buckingham (Global Resources & Infrastructure) of Melbourne (
www.linkedin.com/in/ian-buckingham-07a45618). Then VXL used David Salari now of D.E.N.M (Engineering) ltd to specify the rebuild and upgrade of the existing plant- SER announcement of 1/10/13 (he did the scoping study for Lincoln Materials - their announcement of 8/4/2013).
Patterson's (9/1/2014) said
"
David J. Salari is Chief Operating Officer and is reputably highly capable metallurgical engineer with more than 30 years mining and minerals processing experience including engineering and manufacturing graphite processing plant and equipment. He has been recognised for timely delivery of solutions that increase production and sales in the industrial minerals sectors"
VXL announcement of 30/1/2014 goes on to say:
With this rapid development program, Valence Industries is pleased to announce additions to its senior operations team under the leadership of David J. Salari, P.Eng., Chief Operating Officer.
Ian McLean has been appointed as Valence Industries' Project Manager at Uley. Ian has worked on the delivery of a number of advanced processing and manufacturing projects around the world. Christopher Darby, Managing Director & CEO, said "We are fortunate to have secured the services of a professional of Ian McLean's caliber including his site team members. He brings with him proven leadership ability and the required experience in getting projects like ours delivered." Mr McLean has previously worked as global operations manager for significant mining, manufacturing and process operations and that capability is a valuable asset for the program at Uley. The operations management at site has been bolstered with Valence Industries mobilising its experienced team. This program supports the phased development of the Company's established facilities as Valence Industries takes the operation off care and maintenance and restarting its graphite manufacturing and sales.
Senior roles filled to date include:
Construction Manager
Site Manager
Senior Geologist
Environmental Manager
Procurement & Logistics Manager"
It's all very ironic and frustrating reading it again
In some ways I can see under sizing the grinding capacity as more excusable that some other items. Reading between the lines is looks to me that the design grinding capacity was insufficient to release the impurities in the graphite ore during flotation, so they have either needed several passes or taken longer in the grinder so that the grain size is small enough to release the impurities during flotation. Consequently it is taking much longer in the ball mill/cone grinder to produce product to the desired specification; this should have been recognized over a year ago. One danger here is that the gap in the cone grinder is reduced so as to produce a finer grind; this can lead to failure of the grinder.
How they undersized the bagging capacity is beyond me. I would have thought it a very simple calculation to divide the processing capacity by the bag size so telling them (with contingency) how many bags need to be filled and sealed per hour.
What a tale of incompetence
