At an AGM on the Gold Coast around 2012 that my wife and I attended, I asked the Chairman of the meeting when the process plant would be completed. The Chairman, at the time WM, said you are lucky we have the person from Sinosteel here today who can answer that question.The Chairman directed the question to the Chinese guy from Sinosteel sitting in the front row,and said Mr Jiang when will you complete the process plant?. The Chinese guy stood up and said to the AGM shareholders, "we will commence commissioning of the plant in the first quarter of 2014. But, CDU needs to have 250,000 tones ready by that date so we can commence commissioning the plant" ,and he sat down.
Well history shows us that in the quarterly report dated 31st Jan 2014 that CDU had delivered the required tonnage of 250,000 tonnes in fact 300,000 tonnes was delivered the report states. By that time it was supposed to be completed,Mr Jiang's Sinosteel process plant was nowhere near finished not even the power plant arrived by that date as the reports declare.
Go forward twelve months to Jan 2015, now 2 million tonnes now stockpiled. Still no Mr Jiang's Sinosteel plant. Not even close to being finished. Just photos of what had been done so far.
Move another 6 month forward on to June 2015 Chinese shareholders call EGM saying they are acting in concert to sack the Chairman and CEO for mismanagement, primarily because the plant not completed. CDU not even building the plant, they are the client. The people that led for calling for the then CEO WM, to resign was non other than Mr Jiang from Sinosteel, the same guy that said, "I will fish the plant by first quarter 2014." The same Mr Jiang, who it is now known gathered support from the other major Chinese shareholders to oust WM. WM had apparently made some legal steps against Sinosteel for being more than 2 years late, apparently they were not impressed and possible massive penalties. So best they thought, lets remove him was the quickest way to remove a possible problem. At the same time the Cudeco had FIRB approval for a $50m placement. It seems rather that breathing oxygen into CDU to finish the plant, the Chinese joined forces and then voted against the Companies $50 m placement so the company could not complete the process plant and then offer to loan the company some money to finish the plant. (Why would they do that?) All CDU had to do was deliver 250,000 tonnes to the plant for processing and they did that efficiently delivering 20 times the amount of ore required. (Bad Management?)
So the irony of this whole sad saga is : The same Mr Jiang (full name Jiang Gongyang) that promised the process plant in early 2014 and never started commissioning until late 2016 and still not working more than 3 days in a row before it had to shut down for 3 days is now the COO (chief operating officer, the no 1 guy on the project site. This is the guy responsible for the downfall of the Rocklands Project is now the Boss. This was announced on 1st March 2017. Is the whole Board of CDU crazy or just brain dead? Why appoint the actual person who is 3 years late in delivering the process plant to nameplate production and the most on site senior role to manage the whole project. Jiang Goongyang the new COO admitted on site at the big recent opening of Rocklands inaugural whoohar in Cloncurry with the former MD and Chairman (now both sacked themselves) that he has never been involved in a mining operation in his life and now he's the boss.
The music stopped at Rocklands the day WM was deleted. I know I'll get flack from that statement, but it's a fact. When the water bottle left the site with THE DOG WITH THE 2 DICKS MUSIC DIED.
The plant is a lemon. The whole board is a failure. I'm disgusted at how the Chinese have destroyed the value of CDU. That's the truth of it. After 10 years as a faithful shareholder I can say with confidence: CDU will fail completely within 6 months and that's giving them more time than what I really think. It wouldn't matter if they got a $100m injection with the current structure of management it will never "dance" The plant is a lemon, the COO is a lemon and the Board are all lemons. Sour ones too. No music No Dance.
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