My understanding of Sandalwood is that the plantations that have been done over the last couple of years are for harvesting (incense, oils, perfume etc) and not for Carbon sequestration. The growth has been driven by the advantageous tax ruling (ie you can claim most of the investment in the first year) rather than any significant Sandalwood demand. (happy to stand corrected here)
Planting of Mallee trees is all about sequestration. The economics are a real unknown (to me anyway) especially while a carbon market does not really exist – in Australia anyway. However my feel (sometimes you have to go with the guts) is that over the next two to three years companies that can clearly measure, report and manage carbon sequestration will be in great demand. COZ is the only company that can do this on the ASX.
As a Labor gov’t looks more likely now and signing Koyoto is on top of the Rudd agenda then I think investors are starting to place a few bets on COZ. I have been on COZ for about 10 months now (Oppies for leverage) and now up about 200% - most of that gain in the last week. Happy to hold and see what happens over the next 3 years.
COZ Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held