Ann: Trading Halt, page-154

1. The ship for debt funding sailed long ago, by the time they could realistically get it in place they would have just about spent most of the capex

2. Even if they had time to get debt in place they'd still need an offtake, no financier is going to bank this on hope and dreams. An offtake validates the product as much as it gives certainty of cashflow. A Chinese offtake would carry limited value without something to make it gel.... like a prepayment

3. You can't just turn the switch off on part construction without incurring penalties for termination. They have probably weighed this up against slowing things (to the extent they can) while looking for a funding solution.

4. Someone like the world banks ifc could possibly look at financing this but for them this probably doesn't have critical mass. It's one of those things, a project of this size, the debt funding still requires the same due diligence a 2bn capex project does and at the end of the day financiers need to get paid for their time.

An interesting predicament to follow closely

Aimo