I'd be careful Matt about disparaging someone's religious beliefs and inferring they have a negative impact on how they conduct their work.
It's a bit like
the Gandhi saying "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
When an investor or buyer of a product focuses on the personality or beliefs of the brand's leader, they are playing the person, not the ball.
Do people saying 'I won't buy a Tesla because Elon is a ...twit' apply the same rigour to their purchase of another brand?
I'll bet they don't even know who the CEO is in many cases.
I've worked with people of faith and will say they were extremely hardworking and had greater ethical considerations than their atheist, secular or non-practising people of faith (the latter is where I place myself).
Perhaps that is what drew Stephen Grocott to QPM in the first place - the scientific challenge of getting the Direct Nickel process to scale and the greater good it provides the world in its energy transition.
The greatest force in the TECH project not yet getting off the ground is of course the Chinese-financed Indonesian explosion in refining and consequent plunge in pricing.
Every single western nickel miner did not see this coming.
The World's largest and third largest miners BHP and Glencore, Twiggy Forrest, IGO's 2022 1.3B purchase of Western Areas etc etc.
New Caledonia's fight for independence is also rather poorly timed looking at it through the nickel processing lens.
The big question is will said industry players and western governments lie down and let China control worldwide nickel production?
I'm
betting they won't.
The Indo's aren't all singing off the same songbook either, with some reckoning their
'go big' play may kick them in the nuts long term, and others calling out the
poor ESG practices that have largely enabled the pricing drop. In time, particularly if nickel prices are suppressed, I think they will flip their current view of the costs and benefits to their country.
* Is
this another sign of the LME's weakening influence and emerging support for green nickel premiums?
* New Caledonia's
civil unrest damages bill now at 2.2B Euro, just as
ore shipments to China have been expanded.
Looking forward to next weeks news regarding the renegotiated MGP terms which were flagged in the June quarterly, and then David Wrench presenting at Alpine Capital & JMM Emerging Energy Virtual Conference on Sept 2.
Happy Saturday ALL
(20min delay)