re: no green bottles hanging on Tastarga, Cabot's briefing...

re: no green bottles hanging on Tastarga, Cabot's briefing comments in that June article reflect in part what I had a more than fair idea two years ago would transpire, thanks to information from GIP, my high level source who helped me check bona fides of Egyptian etc deposits and some other people. It was part of why I thought SGW would be in trouble and is quite old news as far as the best informed sections of the industry and market are concerned.

The oversupply situation is nowhere near as bad as it was shaping up to be in 2002 and prices have picked up and demand was back to 2000 levels last year according to the Japanese. For various reasons, this was never going to save SGW, whose grades have been declining as costs have been rising and hedging troubles have been coming home to roost, while the ability for SGW to score further long term, market controlling, lush contracts was under threat as much as four years ago.

Cabot are long term thinkers and players, but may be thankful for their current stock pile (a fraction of the world's offtake for a year), if current worker issues and litigation don't resolve themselves satisfactorily and in the expected timeframes. They don't want to run the mines they have an interest in, including SGW's, if they don't have to. There are a lot of tantalum mines around, but none of the legal ones of useful size are any cheaper to run than what GIP's could be, especially if they get to sell the feldspar (the tin sales are a given if mining starts). Cabot also note that attempts to substitute tantalum with niobium etc haven't been as successful as had been speculated and the pressure to do so has decreased since tantalum went off the boil as well. Niobium is in such oversupply that GIP didn't even assign a value to what it has.

I have no verifiable, publicly available evidence Cabot is involved with GIP in any meaningful way. There's been a lot of speculation of course and it would be a fair guess, but until there is verifiable evidence ... . I do have verifiable information that tantalum is only a part of what both GIP and Cabot are about, just as capacitors are not the only thing tantalum is used in (the mix is changing - one U.S. company is now even promoting replacement knees made of tantalum - there are a lot of advantages). Both Cabot and GIP are in a position to conduct their businesses for decades to come using current resources and both have very long term plans. In that context, what happens in the short term is neither here nor there, but for both there are still some time frames, legal issues and obligations to meet.

The Egyptians have made some mighty interesting comments about particularly tantalum, oil and gold prospects recently, not all of which are verifiable of course. They have said nothing to suggest GIP is no longer in the picture. The main thrust of my post on another forum you mentioned was comment on yesterday's Australian media statements about Egypt having the world's best performing stock market. As noted, the liquid blue chips index is up 10-fold in two years and the best stock in that sort of DOW Jones equivalent is a telecom stock (think mobile phones and so on) - it's up nearly 100-fold in 2.5 years and sitting on a PE of 10. With under utilised resources and wholesale changes in Government support, Egypt is sitting pretty (a lot like Ireland in 1990) and it's part of why MIL moved their operations there after a world wide review.