Interesting perspective you have on things mini-oil. You keep harping back to Yabulu reopening either by Clive, QPM or a 3rd party. I dont thats feasible. It is not modern enough and to make it up-to-date you may as well knock it down.
Clive iswaving around some draft contracts from the Port of Townsville. To me that wasnever going to be the issue. The port is underutilized and he only owes them$1m.
Thebigger issues here will be the $300m owed to other creditors and the environmentalliability he has. This all goes before the money required to get Yabulu up andrunning again. There has been speculation about the size of the environmental liability. See the article below about it being $93m to STARTcleaning it up.
TheQueensland Government says it will cost $93 million to begin the clean-up ofenvironmental damage at Clive Palmer's Yabulu nickel refinery in Queensland.
WhenQueensland Nickel collapsed in 2016, it left debts of $300 million owing tocreditors and put more than 800 people out of work.
Lets sayhe does allll that. He also has the issue of ore supply. Clive isnt they guywho negotiated the Ore contracts for Yabulu. Current QPM management negotiatedthat. That's how they were able to negotiate these new contracts, they have alot of good will in New Caledonia. Clive is the guy who took over the contractsand didn't pay. So it is unlikely they will deal with him again. See below from administrators report.
4.3.6 Ore StocksOn appointment, the Refinery had limited overseas ore and NHC stocks for processing, resulting in the processing of lowergrade domestic ore during the weeks following our appointment. Effective operation of the Refinery requires at least two(2) to three (3) months’ ore on the ground to enable better management of refinery production and higher refinerythroughput (historically up to six (6) months stocks had been held at the Refinery).Upon our appointment, QN urgently sought to secure new supplies of imported ore feed. However, a critical NewCaledonian supplier refused to enter into new ore supply arrangements until the Administrators had committed tosatisfying pre-appointment debts of approximately USD$2.8M and agreed to pay for future supply in advance of loading.
This iseven before taking into account the fact that he called the mayor of Townsvillea bitch or the fact that the state and federal government hate him. I wonteven bring up one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World.
Realistically it is unlikely that Clive will getYabulu up and running again. I'd be stoked however if QPM were to positionthemselves strategically geographically near Yabulu.
Clive bought Yabulu when the Nickel price was depressed, made heaps of money on the nickel price rebound and him and the nephew ran it into the ground basically pillaging it for what it was worth. That is fair enough. He is a business man and making money is his prerogative. The nickel price crashed and mismanagement came back to bite him in the butt. Now Nickel and Cobalt are hot again and he wants another crack at it. I don't consider that to be likely
More in play in the background...... long term thinking? I think I know what you are eluding too. Interesting articles in the Townsville Bulletin this year about some of the work a Dr Fiona McCarthy did with Yabulu tailings... Encourage anyone interested to have a read.
