Now that I’ve had 24 hrs to recover, I’ll share my thoughts on the clustercopulation that was the VRX AGM.
Interestingly, there were a number of familiar faces from the SUV AGM a fortnight ago. Not overly surprising given the same industry and project vicinities. To say the difference between the two gatherings was chalk and cheese would be an understatement. One was polished, professional, forward looking, and with an executive that went out of its way to engage with shareholders. The other was VRX. And yes, that's with SUV’s SP at a 12 month low, too…
I arrived about 15 mins before the start to a small room on the 32nd floor that was already standing room only. The move to Exchange Tower was allegedly so that the IT would work better. You can judge for yourselves how effective that was. But the room was ½ the size it needed to be for in-person participants. That *did* give you the advantage of being able to feel the tension, and hear the bitter sentiments being mumbled by the crew.
The PowerPoint slide pack was the same old tired information that has been floated around for three years… except Bruce’s narration revealed a handful of things that could and should have been announced, to show progress, and keep shareholders both interested and informed. More on that in a minute. The preso went 30 mins longer than needed re-presenting the same stuff we see year after year, rather than just updating the progress.
To me, Bruce came across as a whiney schoolboy making excuses for bad homework. I have worked in both the public service, consulting, and contracting, and I’ll give you a tip: whinging about the rules won’t get them changed. You need to work with them, and understand them. I don’t believe Bruce understands the EPA. I think he has failed miserably to communicate with them, and give them a narrative that “brings them on a journey”. Or maybe he just hasn’t listened?
He whined about the rules changing. He whined about being asked to do studies that weren’t’ relevant. He whined about draft reports not having a time frame for response. He whined about the Water Corp insisting he do extra groundwater testing. He whined about being asked to do an acid mine drainage study that showed there would be no acid drainage. He whined about the EPA saying he’d get a light assessment, then making him do the full kahuna…
In amongst this moan-fest, were the nuggets. Stuff we didn’t know, or hadn’t been told about, or updated on, over the last 12 months:
*The rail haulage option is still in play. It has been hamstrung by the high iron ore price meaning the dumper utilisation at Geraldton allowed no time for cleaning between loads so the silica is not contaminated. It remains a cheaper way to haul silica.
*The Water Corp has asked VRX to undertake studies of the impact on their groundwater draw over a larger area before they will permit, so they are having to do GW testing across a wider footprint.
*They plan to use solar+gas generation to power the plant, but will start with diesel gennies as the gas plants have an 18 month lead time right now
*He revealed our process consultants had stumbled upon a novel way to process the ore, based on technology from the Lithium industry, that increased our final grades as a result. The claim was made he could not announce this as there was a patent pending… but here we are.
*Another 20 50kg samples (or was it 50 20kg samples?) have been or are about to be sent to prospective customers for inspection.
He spent a lot of time defending the Vegetation Direct Transfer method VRX are spruiking, and putting down the EPA for not responding positively to it. That is, IMHO, where his inexperience showed. In case you didn’t realise it, Public Servants do not like innovation. Innovation means someone has to stick their neck out, and risk okaying something that is new and relatively unproven. People on Public Servants wages don’t want to do that. They want simple, tick-the-box, nothing to see here, bureaucracy. So if you are gonna take them outside their comfort zone, you have to have a narrative, tell a story, and bring them along for the ride. Sell the sizzle. I suspect that has not happened. And that may well be Bamford Consulting’s responsibility – the right consultants would have had an existing relationship with the officers involved, and been able to have pre-submission conversations, to find out what touch pints needed to be satisfied. Bullies and bullsh*tters are not going to sway the Government Red (Green) Tape machine. My instincts are that people have not listened to the EPA, or not wanted to hear what they were told, and have ploughed on regardless.
Then there was more moaning about Black Cockatoo habitat, and planting tube stock Banksias, but again, it echoed someone who hadn’t really absorbed what the concerns were, and why they were being asked to do what they have been asked. As I’ve said here before, my experience with this issue is that it isn’t insurmountable, but a contractor needs to take on board what the Enviros are asking, and the preferred way they want to see it managed. Ignore them, and they get jacked off, and will make life as hard as possible. Listen, and be seen to act on their concerns, and generally, you buy yourself credibility and respect.
There was a hard copy pamphlet on the back table that claimed that Arrowsmith North production was “expected in 2021”. Which is nice. Hopefully they were left over from last year’s AGM, because you’d like to think they didn’t spend any of our advertising budget on a forward-looking statement that was stale before the ink was dry.
I was surprised the formal voting was left till after the PowerPoint show. The numbers voting against the remuneration and incentives was encouraging – I can’t recall an AGM I’ve been to where more than 10% voted against, so it’s a clear barometer of SH sentiment that the BoD is on the nose.
So as the talk came to a close, and the temp in the room approached 36C – the aircon was not handling the overcrowding well – the moment we’d be waiting for came from Bruce: “Any questions?”
*crickets*
“Meeting adjourned”
I gotta say I was surprised. During the PowerPoint, you could literally hear people around the room mumbling discontent to themselves and the people standing next to them. They were still doing that in the lift on the ride back down to the Terrace.
The other elephant in the room – Delphi – did not get a single mention. I had thought about dropping in a question about their purpose, but by the time we got to that point, I was just utterly disillusioned by Bruce’s performance. And the last thing I wanted to hear was a reheated trope about them being strategic and good for the company, which is all I would have got.
These things will always be subjective, but I felt totally underwhelmed, and like I was seeing through the veneer of confidence and bluster that was last year’s AGM, behind the façade, to an overpaid, out of his depth MD; an emperor with no clothes, who was heavy on excuses and light on solutions. The PowerPoint says it all – no timelines, no expectations anymore. It’s like they’ve soiled the bed with the EPA, and until enough time has passed to wash the sheets and get fresh linen on, we’re just stuck here lying in it.
DYOR – bring the receipts - GLTAH
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