I called the company last week to ask a few questions. Below is mostly word for word.
I asked how the site visit by the IDC went and where they are up to with negotiations regarding the IDC funding.They are going well, 8 people went out to Angola and went to visit the mine, the site of the fertiliser plant and went out to Carrinho, who are probably going to be our major customer. Since then we have been progressing through due diligence, getting all our documents together and negotiating terms. We are progressing and they (IDC) are trying to get documents together for submission to their credit committee. It is going to be close to whether it is going to happen before Christmas, but if not then in the new year.
I asked about the earthworks of the phosphate plant and whether the progress is being held up by funding. I made a point about the plant not being operational by the time of planting season next year.We think we are going to be doing earthworks, draining and concrete pretty soon, we are getting the final proposals from companies on that, we had to get our detailed designs re-done due to a change in project management teams, but we have those now and we are going through final proposals now, we are pushing as hard as possible to get that up and running in December.
I asked about the offtake agreements with Bicom and whether there has been any progress.What we have been doing is conducting field trials with them and they have been very positive. We appointed a chief strategy and marketing person and he "Rob Newbot" came on in September and has been back and forth from Angola a lot, meeting everyone, he has a strong background in fertiliser and sales and distribution. He is setting all that up and doing those negotiations and they are moving forward positively, all the groups we are dealing with are very positive. I asked if this is the same as Carrinho, as it seems this is the most progressed potential offtake partner, is this waiting on any additional field trials or funding? I think both parties set out some terms that reflect the initial stages of understanding each-other and since then we have been working very closely together, in particular Rob Newbot has been working with the CEO of the agricultural side of the company (Carrinho), we are defining things like how the product is going to be delivered, we had a question mark on whether this was going to be in bags or in bulk, so they have been advising on what they want and where we deliver it, so it is moving forward. With the question on field trials, that was something that they had originally stipulated, but we already have a wealth of studies to demonstrate to them, including in Angola, we already have four (groups, couldn't make out specifically what they said) working directly for us, so they are running lots of field trials around Angola, we are all pretty aligned that we are trying to get towards the October planting season, but there are still a few steps to go.
I asked about the P4 study, I said the market was expecting something a couple of weeks ago.You are not the first one to remind us of that and I am telling our technical people that we need to update everyone. I think the study has been completed, and we need to get an update out, I keep reminding our people.
I discussed some generic things about the business I was excited about and some of the future prospects with the company.That's good, we know we have a lot more we can be telling everyone about this company, but just a little bit of a reflection on where Angola is at, at the initial stages of developing it's agricultural sector, it has a strong focus, a primary focus of the president. There was a meeting between Lorenzo and Joe Biden, you can youtube it, there was an announcement about a real focus on developing Angolas agricultural sector, the US will put in around 1 billion dollars developing infrastructure, and they are trying to push to be a net exporter of food, but at the moment they import more food. What Carrinho is doing has a lot of support from international groups like the IMF and other banks and everything is aligned to develop the agricultural sector, so we are in a good space. I mentioned the relationship between Carrinho and the company seems like it will be a mutually benificial one. Mutually beneficial for both but also for Angola, there is a real strong support in the country. Hopefully we will get some good news out for everyone soon.
Overall the conversation was positive, there seemed to be some frustration on how slow things move, and that most of the big decisions currently are sitting out of the companys hands. Again this was mostly word for word, so you can interpret any of it how you like. I personally am happy to be holding, waiting for more positive developments, which seem to be on their way.
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