webcastOverall I came away feeling good about John Lee's webcast. It took over 1.5 hours as the moderator had to translate Lee's comments to German and Lee's connecting kept cutting out. Lots to look forward to: Wellgreen drill results by mid-July, rail and off-take contracts at any time, and licensing of Chandgana by the end of October.
As we had figured out, securing rail cars are the key issue to actually selling any coal in the near future. Lee says PCY needs to secure at least 300 railcars and to do some initial runs to the port before they can formalize off-take agreements. There is no shortage of interested end buyers and port capacity is fine, but they need to see that PCY can deliver. Since Lee has made this his priority, I am wondering why he is in Vancouver and about to travel to Brazil? I am happy to hear he is meeting with Vale about possible cooperative ventures, but shouldn't he be negotiating with the Russians until a rail deal is hammered out? Perhaps a deal is imminent and he simply could not reveal every detail just yet. If I recall, Lee indicated that they are talking to 4 or 5 private rail companies. It is true that the Russians are famous for playing hard ball, but the long-term potential of this project should make it possible to reach a reasonable agreement.