Just re-read Tony's career profile, really impressive.
If I'm reading it correct, he is leaving an incredibly key position with Roy Hill. The plant at Roy Hill is brand new & only recently did he take on the role as acting process manager.
So here's my radar going off again....
Remember BBI - Peter Thomas well this is the section out of the 'unauthorized' bio written on Twiggy.
Don't get me wrong, I think Twiggy is not only a fascinating person, great for Australia, but more importantly he is tough as nails having built Anaconda & then FMG. Anyway this is Peter Thomas :
"The last hope for Twiggy - as it had been at Anaconda back in 1997 - lay with the high yield bond market. Only those with a taste for risk would back him. A prominent Jewish banker in NY, Eddie Sugar, whom Forrest had known from his time at Anaconda, helped promote the Fortescue story to US investors, who were more than their Australian counterparts to back an entrepreneur who had previously failed.
Over three hectic weeks in the middle of 2006, two teams of Fortescue executives travelled to fourteen cities across the world. The "blue team" of Forrest, finance executive Peter Thomas and John Clout headed to Europe, while the "red team of Scrimshaw, Graeme Rowley and Chris Catlow went to the US.
And This
The biggest problem for those tasked with building the infrastructure was that they only had a $2B budget when it appeared they would need at least twice that much.....
Forrest set up a special team, led by Alan Watling & Peter Thomas to find new ways of doing things that would slash the cost of the project....
the team delivered a project plan with a budget of less than $2B.....
In the end, the total bill for the project was $2.8B.
So what do we have -
A very strong link to Twiggy. PT & AF would be on first hand speaking terms even now & BBI's MOU means they are undertaking due diligence on the TIVAN process - IOW they are looking at the robustness of the process flow sheets. Anyone remember how important finding a better grade IO to mix with FMGs current production output is.... It's easy to find links.....
And now the process manager for Roy Hill joins TNG. Who do you think has to report to Gina on what is going on with operations at RH? So TA & GR will also be on first hand speaking terms.
A few things could be going on here & I don't believe in co-incidence.... so possibly...
GR & AF are working together to suss out whether TNG have all the ducks lined up with TIVAN & if it will be as revolutionary a process as it has been represented as.
GR & AF via different approaches are trying to get a look in under the hood at TIVAN - one via a due diligence activity, another by having one of the smartest guys in your Iron Ore operation who will fully understand the technology, to be a part of the project development team at TNG.
Third possibility is pure co-incidence... You know key person from FMG, key person from RH with ties to TNG & getting a chance to look at TIVAN.
If either of the first two are true, neither are bad outcomes. In fact both GR & AF, IMO, would have to know what Vanadium is doing, it's importance going forward, but it's also the low cost improvement to their IO quality via TIVAN that has to be of incredible interest to them.
Have to wonder why RIO & BHP haven't shown their hand though.
Pity my job is 7 days a week as damn I want to put this all together and publish it somewhere.
For Titanium, Vanadium are going to join the ranks of Iron Ore as another high value export for Australia in years to come & the smart money seems to be taking quite an interest in how it's going to get there.
All IMO. Not to be taken as investment advice. I mean what would I know?
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