The great tragedy of CCC is that these are profitable mines but...

The great tragedy of CCC is that these are profitable mines but the company itself has squandered them. Even at the current terrible coal prices the mines should at least be keeping the company afloat.

When CCC (inevitably IMO) goes under, somebody is going to pick up mines like Pen and the last few years of Vlak for a steal and make some good money, I think. Vlak in particular is performing very well.

There is nothing wrong with the assets. And that's been the big lesson for me, the one positive to come out of my investment in CCC. As a geo and a scientist I tend to look at the hard assets and how they are performing. Strip ratio, JORC tonnes and Reserves, FOB costs, coal prices, LOM, etc. CCC had some good assets and a solid growth pipeline of quite literally about a dozen mineable deposits. What I particularly liked was that each mine was small individually but they were large in aggregate which I thought de-risked the company - Vlak by itself is not much more than pocket money, but get 10 Vlaks together and you have some good income.

I've got no experience in business or finance so I didn't look properly at the complicated structure of CCC, the 'consulting fees' paid to board members, the debt, and all the stuff guys like BBB were pointing out for months (and copping flak for it from the rampers who mysteriously are no longer around).

So that's been a good lesson for me. Good assets do not automatically equal success, if the company controlling those assets is dysfunctional.