our winter of content

After many winters of discontent, it was a real buzz to land some work in Newcastle and plan a lightening visit to Kooragang Is. Bloody daylight saving left me little time before my flight home but 3 radar traps later I got to the plant. I had left phone messages all week for an appointment but with no response decided to turn up anyway. The place looked deserted when I got there. I went all around the car parks hoping to write down the trade names encountered - BHP, Smorgen, Bluescope, etc: but nothing. The place really was deserted. I was about to leave when I detected some hammering out the back and decided to investigate. The plant is behind a bunch of sheds. When I was first there sometime between 1995 and 2000, after my first investment in apg, I remember being so thoroughly disappointed. The plant looked like something built in the first world war. It still does. But today it didn't seem to matter. And as I arrived I saw that people were there and the place was operating. I saw a "young lad" and wondered over. It was John Winter and he guessed who I was. We had coffee and I had an extraordinary lesson in chemistry over the next hour and a half. I also got a sense of what apg has and perhaps what they don't. It all left me feeling good. And what I say here is based on the interpretation of someone with no chemical skills and minimal geological understanding. My primary interest was on how it all went with BHP and where their interest really lay. I think at some point, I had come to believe, perhaps along with others here, that the "new" dri discovery was what would drive the game from now on. I have left there with a different opinion. My understanding is that BHP's total focus is on the mineral sand treatment with the associated acid regeneration. The fact that the bottom line may be enhanced by turning iron oxide into iron is not and won't be the focus. But from all I heard, all testing has gone very well.
The focus now is on upgrading the plant to be able to handle significant batches through the whole process. We all know that. John thinks that when the plant is upgraded, that is when the action will really start for apg. He outlined dozens of applications for the test plant - most were outside my understanding but I could see that there were thousands of clients from very different fields that could use acid regeneration, or treatment of their baghouse dust or millscale. They are likely to be queing up.
We talked about the program of plant upgrading. It is not going to happen over night. And it could be closer to the end of next year before it is really up and running. But that doesn't mean there won't be some action in the meantime. There is gold of course and also the real likelihood that BHP will sign up for their African licence.
There are other things going on - John seems like the sort of guy who is always experimenting on something. Some were alluded to but most went over my head - sorry.
All in all a very positive experience. And it was confirmed that BHP have been very very helpful. John will be at the agm - he is very easy to talk to. Most of you locals probably already have. I wish I was a chemical engineer - I could probably elaborate much more and give you more info.
On another note, I have been searching the patent office records and at IP Australia can only find one confirmed patent and one lapsed provisional patent in the name of apg. I know patents take a while to come through, but I did understand that there would be a provisional something listed once anything was lodged. Is there anywhere else one should be looking?
And lastly, have the latest top 20 if anyone interested.
Cheers
jwt