Remember that pathetic guy ?
https://seekingalpha.com/author/peter-epstein/instablog
From his own "introduction"... looks his emplyment at a hedge fund got ubruptly terminated (I wonder how much money he lost there with his "genius" insight LOL )
Apparently , being unemployable he decided to do a freelance hustling on SA and SH .
He started to pump his initial picks :CMK and SGQ by trying to impress dudes here with his "great ", LOOOOL , analyst's experience and " smooth - talking -operator " skills , around May 2011.
In May CMK was around $ 3 and SGQ $11.
8 months after he went in, CMK 8 months of relentless slide bottomed below $ 1 geeeesus
Same SGQ - $ 5.5 bottom ( he got slashed by 2 and 3 )
In order to earn some petty but real money ,he also offered his services ( to pump on SA and SH ) to SGQ.
HOW EIGEN GOT "Mr EINSTEIN- HE - AIN'T" (MEHA) off CMK board.
End July 2011 EIGEN posted here ( thank's Eigen for the MOST VALUABLE COAL INFO seen on SH boards in a decade )
https://www.stockhouse.com/Bullboards/MessageDetail.aspx?p=0&m=30024875&l=0&r=0&s=CMK&t=LIST
- a great find and an AUTHORITATIVE TOOL to compare and value quality of coal deposits around world
... and a major nail in the CMK coffin showing where CMK coal quality is on a scale
Mr EINSTEIN- HE - AIN'T, but he is not as stupid as the dudes here
He realized after Eigen's post ,what an overpumped loser CMK is .
He gave envious credit and thanks to Eigen for finding that chart and dissapeared .
You can place CMK coal on that quality ( therefore price ) scale close to the very bottom of met coals - on the border of thermal.
PCX and JRCC have plenty of that kind of coal - they call it a "crossover met coal"-.
It sells as CHEAPEST met in times of tight supply and most of the time is sells as thermal ,or doesn't sell at allif a miner tries to insist on met prices.
In Australian classification CMK would likely classify as Semi-soft coking coal (SSCC) or weak coking coal. ( see details end of post )
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After that - the more he pumped the lower his stocks went LOOOL
So , MEHA went silent for months
.
Few weeks ago, after coals bounced up + 30 % and looks , they are establishing long term slow uptrend ,
MEHA started posting bearish calls , and quoting better than him experts .
Basically bad and down till fall of 2012 ( TECK sold a shipload $ 175 /t geeesus )
Finally (6 months to late is better than not at all) ,he acknowledged the reality .
.Now he is basically right with his bearish outlook
, BUT IS DOING IT AT THE END OF BEAR CYCLE. geeeez
I said : WOW !! - Mr Contrary Indicator posts suggest , time to buy must be near ?
His main arguments were simple - a take overs of small coals...
not hard to call in case of SGQ which put "for sale " sign a year ago.
After 1 year, SGQ price dropped 50% and got taken for 1/2 hoped- for - price today.
Not to good TO price indicator for CMK .
Now , when SGQ become quite interesting , our hired by SGQ pumper is nowhere to find
....geeesus ...you're fired -Not -Einsein.
Maybe he will show up and explain interesting SGQ arbitrage .
SGQ TO price is 8.48 and today jumped only to 6.52 - almost 15% below TO price.
So, what does this mean Mr Einstein -you -ain't ?
Is Friedland so desperate as to sell at 1/2 potential or he has something in his sleeve?
They both, CMK and SGQ are losing money as producers
,but at least someone is interested in SGQ
and this may end up with total/ final TO of the 40% shares Chalco won't own.....
at higher than $ 8 .5 price ( I would suggest $ 10 )
Plus CHALCO will have the obligation to purchase the coal at market prices for a period of 24 months.
That should make SGQ profitable and SGQ will not run out of money.
CMK on the other hand is running out of even the SHARK-LOANER's money
( no normal bank in it's right mind would loan a penny to CMK )
Plus SGQ is not screwed up to the brink of bankruptcy by a contractor.
(told ya 1 Y ago this will happen to CMK-= contractor will suck them dry and then either he will resign or be fired )
Yet unproportionate bunch of dudes is pilng up on CMK and almost no one on SGQ
Hmmmm. -- another contrarian indicator ?
Ben Kates is not Friedman either.
The difference in class and business acumen of those 2 people can hardly be bigger.
=====================
CMK COAL RANK DETAILS
Coal rank may be measured petrographically in terms of vitrinite reflectance, in accordance with standard ASTM tests
OR measured chemically in terms of volatile matter ( high VOLatile is no good and CMK has that)
Reflectance of organic matter determine rank and how well a coal will form coke.
R is synonymous with the degree of maturation of coal., Degree of coalification
R makes it possible to classify coals by grade
Vitrinite reflectance determine the resultant coke texture and structure
- both important coke properties that affect resultant CSR.( hot strength)
R and Volatile matter are 2 major indicators of coke strength.
It is impossible to reduce coal quality to just 1 mumber
Beauty is in eyes of beholder like IE. low ash ( CMK has quite high ash)
But, still, there are 2 major parameters shown on EIGEN's chart deciding about usefullness for coke production
( 1 ) R= REFLECTANCE OF VITRINITE - the vertical scale : CMK aver .is below 0.9= poor
Blue =0.88
Mxwell= ,0.9,
Apache=0.91 ,
Allen= .0.85
The scale is : 0.6 -2.0 for bituminous and HCC
below 0.6 -LIGNITE /BROWN COAL
0.6 -0.9 poor = CMK ,how you dare to compare CMK to GCE or WLT ? geeesus
0.91- 1.49 -good
1.5 - 2 - excellent R ( GCE has 1.52, WLT even better in US , WTN bit worse )
2.0- 5.0 anthracite
AND ( 2 ) INERTS % - horizontal scale .. dependant on values of ( 1 )- not linear = this curved line in middle is optimal
CMK have:
22.5% =BLUE , 27.7% =APACHE,& rest in between,
Now
1. take those 2 numbers and locate CMK on this chart,
CMK will land around the letter "E" in "Elkhorn " and letter "H" depending on CMK seam
2 say : GEEEEESUS ....... THE LOWEST RANK AMONG ALL CC DEPOSITS ON CHART
Everything below and even to the side of CMK(same rank) sells on thermal market,
even if it has some coking qualities.
Almost 1/2 the GCE rank = almost 1/2 GCE price ,right ?
Pinto vs Cadillac.
3. Search the names of neighboring CMK deposits on chart to see what kind of coal they sell
---WITMAN to the left has same R- as Allen and Blue and IS THERMAL
(77% of SA electricity did run on that coal.)
-- Same ELKHORN - in the past biggest producer of THERMAL in US.
(only in this deposit you have a hope of finding lowest rank CC producer)
-- EVERYTHING BELOW R-80 on right side of CMK seems ,
is seling as THERMAL.
-- Big Ben = THEEEEERMAL
-- Borehole = Cardiff Borehole. UG. Thermal Coal
-- West Wallsend Colliery A Leading Exporter of Thermal Coal
https://www.ame.com.au/Companies/CT/Big+Ben+Holdings+Pty+Ltd.htm
https://westwallsendcolliery.com.au/EN/Pages/default.aspx
-- Mike is Japanese- closed after 400 people died in accident
- no info into what market they were selling
-- Above CMK on chart= -yellow squares = bunch of Nova Scotia mines
- some cooking ,most WERE SELLING as thermal
All shut down now = were not economical.
YES -some coals selling as thermal may have better rank than CMK --- LOL
And this bunch of ...( God - don't make me call names again ) is using in their PROMOTION a phrase
" HIGH QUALITY CC" geeeesus
--IN BEST CASE it is HUUUUUUGE OVERSTATEMENT / BS
-- IN WORST CASE A FRAUD.- similar PATTERN of BS-tting in past, indicates this is the most likely case
Did they disclose the price at which they sold this first trial shippment ?
- with no follow up sales whatsoever ?
..AFFRAID OF TELLING THE THRUTH ?? or plain criminal negligence of not disclosing material stuff ?
Same (they screw you over and over ) as this contractor crisis - reporting 1.5 MONTHS later (according to Eigen this happened mid Feb)..to allow buddies to exit ?
.TRYING TO DELAY INEVITABLE WHOLESALE INVESTORDS EXIT BEFORE THEY CASH OUT ANOTHER $$ MILLIONS IN OPTIONS ? ?
That means ONLY ONE THING : THOSE CUSTOMERS WHO TRIED CMK COAL ARE NOT INTERESTED
...AT ANY . EVEN DIP ..DISCOUNTED ... PRICE
( CMK of course got that assesment months and months ago ,but as usual chose not to disclose that to the gullible bagholders)
Coke with isotropic texture derived from weak-coking high-volatile (HV) coal
is chemically weak and easily attacked by the gasification reaction
with carbon dioxide. (wasted carbon - wasted coke- wasted $$ )
All above confirms past ELK owner's practice of selling as thermal to outside
and coking pretty sheity , weak coke for himself
IN those times the CRS = hot strength and few other tests didn't exist.
Australians have classification at bottom of which is
Semi-soft coking coal (SSCC) or weak coking coal ( remember 2-weeks long discussion here about how soft CMK coal is ?)
QUOTE from some doc, I come across:
" SSCC is used in the coke blend, but results in a low coke quality
with a possible increase in impurities.
"There is scope for interchangeability between thermal
coal and SSCC and thus SSCC prices have a high
correlation with thermal prices." ( in US they call it "CROSSOVER COAL)
Weak,low rank, high volatile coking coals(W_ LR_HV_CC) yields predominately a very porous highly reactive isotropic carbon with only a small proportion of fine textured anisotropic domains.
Low grade coke is too reactive with everything else, but iron ore in the blast furnance
CMK SYMBOL should be ::
W- LR-HV-CC-EOTM
Weak,Low Rank, High Volatile Coking Coal.,Excellent On Thermal Market
Coking coals they are all right, but most of the time those kinds of coals are cooking water in thermal boilers
GEEEEEESUS
The only question is when they will admitt , they crossed- over to thermal prices .
Even if they won't, the crossovers coals sell in US lately for like
$ 120 , In AU- like $135 and going lower
and CMK cost in past and this year should be not less than $ 150- 160 and up.
.
the only thing they are coking and burning is people's retirement savings .
.$$ .hundreds of millions of them geeesus
.