Hydrodec Share Discussion Threads

[capricious] 16/12/2013 12:37

www.brrmedia.com/event/119442/ian-smale-chief-executive?popup=true&wl=666


Like it, we're lucky to have Ian and his experience, no more so than now in dealing with the disaster recovery.

[capricious] 16/12/2013 09:24

Agreed Mortimer, I think they've done pretty well, and now there will be a wait as the recovery stages are reached and cleared.

Most importantly the G&S partnership is strong, their product is market beating, so I'm confident that things will come back stronger.

[mortimer7] 16/12/2013 08:37

RNS update this morning. Probably as good as could be hoped for at this stage.
Markets reacting positively so far.

[capricious] 14/12/2013 13:00

Did they have a mobile unit in Australia, I think they sold off that part as it wasn't cost effective. It could be worth having a mobile unit purely for backup, in a similar way you would have a power generator.

[capricious] 14/12/2013 12:29

Somehow I missed this

hydrodec.com/download/pdf/press-release/Canton-update-12-Dec.pdf



As Ian says, it's too early to pin the cause on mechanical failure, but based on the lead up, logically this fits my previous thoughts. It would certainly be a good outcome, it's impossible to completely stop mechanical failures. Designing the new processing unit to mitigate any further risks would be an acceptable approach, and I'm sure the EPA/Local groups would see this as so.

All in all, the group has responded admirably.

I feel confident with all their experience, doing a complete rebuild will not take more than 6 months, the shake downs and EPA sign off(s), would be the only likely cause of extra delay.

[welshmentrader] 10/12/2013 03:09

BES does looking promising and has doubled there share price since the summer. I like that they only have 363.23m shares in issue and a low Mcap, has the potential for major growth! May buy 100k of shares into them in the new year and see where it leads

[sueyou1] 09/12/2013 21:41

WT, nothing in the realm of AFC/QFI I would put forward yet, I have to be 100% sure myself first ;)

BES is my 'recovery play', high risk but I only have a small holding that I can easily afford to lose if it goes pear shaped, but so far I am almost 100% up. BES looking good for a profit next year which would change it completely.

[welshmentrader] 09/12/2013 21:29

Good to know sue, cheers. Wish I had found AFC a lot earlier, your entry price will serve you well there. Any other companies you care to share you have been looking at for a multi bagger or early start up?

[sueyou1] 09/12/2013 18:40

WT, I don't really have a target for HYR, all I am doing is waiting for them to build the business up and get motor oils going, as I think a bid will eventually come in at a much higher price than what I paid. I am happy to wait for that. Why sell out before the max value is realised? It might take 3-4 years but it is a side holding for me, QFI and AFC are my big holdings, each could make me a few £m, both should.

[welshmentrader] 08/12/2013 22:27

Hey sue, are you in here as big as QFI? What's your share price target going forward? I was in here at 8p and sold out in profit a few months back to put more into QFI but looking to get back in here in the new year, just looking for your thoughts.

[capricious] 08/12/2013 20:25

And although obviously better that it never happened, Hydrodec have shown that when disaster does strike, which in life is all too inevitable, they are to be trusted when it comes to safety and corporate responsibilty.

[sueyou1] 08/12/2013 17:57

capricious, thanks, that's a relief!

[capricious] 06/12/2013 18:16

Erin Strouse, of Ohio EPA, confirms no environmental impact


www.wksu.org/news/story/37586

[capricious] 06/12/2013 15:16

US data, jobs numbers great, consumer sentiment great, yesterday's GDP, unemployment claims all great !



I'm not sure if we will get an update tonight, or if we do, whether there will be much to report, by all accounts the weather is getting bad.

[capricious] 06/12/2013 12:13

Marsh and AIG promise
www.businessinsurance.com/article/20130310/NEWS04/303109962

==
An agreement between Marsh Inc. and American International Group Inc. to quickly pay multimillion dollar commercial property damage claims has been welcomed by some buyers, though several observers say it simply codifies existing best practices.

Marsh and AIG say the major claim promise they put into writing affects property claims of $3 million or more globally. Once coverage is confirmed, AIG will provide the policyholder with 50% of its share of the agreed estimated value of the claim within seven days. The pledge includes property damage, cleanup costs and extra business costs, but not business interruption claims.
==

So the damage claim is expedited.


Some further links - Marsh
hxxp://usa.marsh.com/NewsInsights/ThoughtLeadership/Articles/ID/29908/Business-Interruption-A-Brief-Primer-and-Lessons-Learned-from-Superstorm-Sandy.aspx

To answer my question in a previous post, there are likely two parts to the 'Interruption' element, the Restoration period, i.e. the period to rebuild, and then additionally Extended Indemnity, an agreed coverage period used to support the business as it gets back up to speed.

From the link above and recent updates, I assume (speculate) significant coverage means some form of extended indemnity.

[capricious] 06/12/2013 08:41

Two items:

- I posted about the lateness of the hour, it was in the UK, but not in the US. Being that it was end of day on Sunday, and only two employees monitoring, I still lean towards mechanical rather than human intervention. Hydrodec would know from maintenance/operational logs if it occurred just after such an event.

- I was wondering about the interruption insurance. Coverage should still be active even after all repairs are complete. If indeed it is to act to return the company to it's previous state, as if the incident hadn't occurred, wouldn't that also cover the period after the repair as the company builds up it's supply chain.

[capricious] 05/12/2013 22:45

Thanks Trav, and very interesting. SueYou would probably be better placed to give insight... although I think it isn't going to be quick, the investigation should wrap up much sooner than that. The fire department aren't going to spend that much time onsite, it's smaller and they simply won't have the man power to stay an extended period, and there were no injuries. Once the building is released, an assessment should be made relatively quickly. In a similar way repair work could start as soon as the negotiations are completed and the project team flesh out the construction plans. Any findings from external/internal investigations could feed into the build, in parallel.

[trav5] 05/12/2013 21:19

Hi Cap & Sue,

Thanks for your for posts I have decided to hang in. HYR's management seem to be doing all the right things. Slightly off topic I was serving on the HMS Illustrious in 86 when it had a major fire due to a gear box explosion. I cannot remember exactly how long the board of enquiry lasted to establish the cause but it was certainly months. Although this has had a limited impact as the repair process started immediately but the military obviously operate under a different set of guidelines. Do you know if HYR can start the re-building plant prior to establishing the cause?

[capricious] 05/12/2013 17:16

Latest Update

www.hydrodec.com/download/pdf/press-release/Update-on-Canton-incident-051213.pdf


Great work. Their ongoing response has been very encouraging.


Good to hear that they are looking to see if they can accelerate plans, I'd imagine it's a lot of hard work to achieve something like this, but glad they are still thinking big.

[capricious] 05/12/2013 16:17

GL luck with your decision.


As to insurance, damages is one element, but the interruption/continuity policy in practice is supposedly there to act as though the incident hadn't happened, and then stop once everything is restored.


For Evergreen the comparison was there more as a stark contrast to how Hydrodec have run their company. There were two more significant events after the fire at Evergreen, and a lot of lobbying by locals for it to be shut down, they weren't operating fully for two years. Only after that did they go under, and at the time there was still a big impact from the recession.

It's early days and there are obviously risks, we need more data.


Re: failure rates.
The problem is getting reliable statistics, especially on the web. Some are selling or offering services which are related to disaster recovery etc, so have an interest in regurgitating figures without validation or peer review. The other thing to consider when looking at the figures, they make no reference to the normal failure rate, which is pretty high in itself.

[blippy2] 05/12/2013 15:34

"eventually went under"

Thanks capricious, it's food for thought.

Not to be a scaremonger, but that's what I'm trying to weigh up in my mind. I read somewhere that the majority of companies that have a catastrophe in their main factory often go under.

As you say, there's a difference between BP and Evergreen: BP has diverse operations, so all their eggs are not in one basket.

I'm not sure how comforted I am by the existence of insurance. Yeah, it's insured, but does is really compensate?

Sigh. I was doing pretty well in HYR before all this happened, and I have still to make up my mind whether this incident represents game over. I'll need to investigate more to make up my mind. Let's hope I make the right decision.

[capricious] 05/12/2013 14:59

Hi blippy,


Re: percentages

I couldn't give any kind of meaningful number, and comparisons are difficult to apply, but I can give two recent examples, (the ones I still remember). One is more related to the investment side, as the size of the company discounts a direct comparison, the other is more relevant.


BP, I'm sure pretty much everyone knows what happened. A great company before the incident, suffered heavily due to all the bashing, to satisfy a political agenda, and then milked as a cash cow. Importantly for those seeing the same strong company, and that nothing had changed in the long term, jumping in at the distressed level, rewarded the higher risk play.


I guess fewer would've heard of a company called Evergreen Oil. This holds more relevance to the current situation. I'd say they were similar in size to Hydrodec, with a fire some years back damaging two of their processing trains ( + toxic spillage). At this point, the comparison ends, further digging found a list of incidents as long as your arm, one or more almost on a yearly basis, with penalty citations for clear breaches of safety.

In the end, If I recall the repair work took 6 months, but they hadn't got full sign off from either the fire department, health and safety or local authorities. I assume this was due to their poor safety record. I think nearly two years after, they still weren't back up to full capacity and eventually went under. This was undoubtedly made worse by insurance disputes, which again, I can only assume was their safety record. I don't know whether they had a business interruption policy.


In Hydrodec's favour as posted previously, is their excellent record, their experience and emergency response, the support of local authorities, their new US partner, and unless we hear otherwise, insurance protection for their bottom line.

[blippy2] 05/12/2013 12:27

@capricious What percentage of companies do you consider received a mortal blow from such an incident?

[capricious] 05/12/2013 09:51

I've followed other companies that have had similarly drastic incidents, and the share price just collapsed. I'm not saying the share price will not trace back down as things inevitably take time, but it's a direct reflection on the company and how the market regards it.

This is down to the people working and running it, the fact that they have always had strong support from institutionals, their growing presence in the industry, and that their product/tech is top of the line.