My apologies for the late reply, was a bit busy yesterday afternoon. I did attend the meeting and noted a few facts that I can report back.
Firstly, IMO, I do not believe that BKT are in trouble in any way. I have been wrong about such matters in the past, but I get the strong suggestion that we are pretty close to a resolution.
Unfortunately, due to a bit of a misunderstanding, I entered the conference room a few minutes late - the folk who "checked me in" directed me to a waiting area, but didn't advise me that the meeting had started - hmmmmm. As a consequence, I missed John de Vries (JDV) advice as to why we had to go into a trading halt.
NOTE: the situation itself is extremely sensitive, so JDV and the board are pretty cagey as to what they say currently - they even had some sort of "minder" from the registry office to make sure that anything said wouldn't upset outside parties - presumably some in Africa.
Basically, as I see it, there has been some sort of SNAFU in-country, and to save face, BKT have to submit a bunch a paperwork to satisfy the evolved situation. I asked if this matter was a typical "African Time" problem, and JDV indicated that this is NOT such a situation, but rather an error or similar.
JDV stated that the TANZ Govt. are really keen to get this ting going, they are wanting the foreign income to begin flowing.
I asked if there was any suggestion of a "state actor" (we all know whom) involved in this matter, and he indicated that this wasn't the case at all.
JDV indicated a Korean Gent on the panel, turns out he was a POSCO representative - he indicated that POSCO was keen to get construction started on their refinery/facility - so I took the opportunity to ask him how long before their facility would require raw material. he indicated "mid" 2027 as a likely target. Following on from this, I asked JDV how long should we expect OUR building works should be expected to take - he suggested a 2-year build program - at that point we will be shipping product to Korea.
If this is the case, then POSCO & BKT are pretty well in alignment in terms of mutual understanding - IMO.
That was the end of the formal meeting, so I went up to JDV to have a chat some more.
He re-iterated that matters in TANZ were very sensitive, and that the meeting yesterday - to discuss share issuing and further options would NOT have happened if they were aware of this new matter - but the process was too far advanced. He didn't direct me to treat this matter sensitively, but noted that there is a lot more happening that they just can't reveal as it may compromise the current situation. I got the hint.
JDV was in Africa a short time ago, and is in regular contact with the appropriate players over there, we have friends in-country who want us to succeed.
I asked about finance arrangements, and he advised that we should get moving pretty quickly" to a financial solution quite quickly once this latest little problem is resolved - I got the vibe that we are talking weeks and not months - but we are working on African Time here.
Just remember, POSCO want/need our product, and are spending an awful lot of money to develop their facility to our graphite grades. I am sure that they are providing some leverage from a different direction - maybe at a Government level - maybe, but we will never know.
Anyway, that's my brain dump from the meeting - enjoy it and any typo/grammar errors.
Pat
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