Viney, I agree with your comments and think that given you have not received a response to your email that it could point to management not wanting to comment on something that is in the process of material change. I hope your RIGHT.
On the off-take agreement - I am of the understanding that BTU had roughly $145m of near term financing commitments made up of approx $70mn capex for Buller, $35m for the Eastern Res deal (of which only ~$6m is still owing)and the remaining $40m of payments to L&M on 1st production ($20m) and first 1m/t ($20m).
BTU has roughly $123m of avaliable financing in the form of approx $73m cash and $50m loan from the off-take facility with stemcore. Hence there is $22m gap that potentially needs to be filled which IMO will come from the 2nd off-take agreement that (like the stemcore deal) will include a loan facility. Therefore I do not believe that BTU will be coming back to the markets to raise more capital.
Given the quality of the Buller coal I think that there will be significant demand to secure off-take via an agreement for the major industry players.
I also agree with you Viney in that BTU will only annoucement a second off-take deal in the range of 20-40% (meaning they would of locked in 60-80%) to leave enough tonnage to benefit from selling the coal on the spot market at a 5-15% premium.
Lemon. Note: These figure are my own and may or may not be accurate. Please DYOR.
BTU Price at posting:
$1.13 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held