Mercantile Ports & Logis... Share Discussion Threads

[mount teide] 22/3/2017 21:21

Shareholders may be aware that early last year ITD Cementation won the dredging, land reclamation and build tender for the first phase expansion of the nearby Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT) deepwater Container port.

The huge deepwater port expansion project will develop three new container berths, covering a linear quay length of 1,000 metres with a 15.5 metre vessel draught capacity. The new facilities will be capable of accepting the latest generation of Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCV), which currently are unable to trade to Mumbai due to the 14m draft restriction in the long harbour access channel and alongside the existing container berths.

The new terminal will also feature 225 acres of high density, high point load, 6 high container stacking, with capacity for 2.4 million TEU, serviced by 12 post panamax quay cranes, each with a height of a 20 storey office block.

Work on the port expansion project commenced in April 2016 and is currently on schedule to open in early 2018. That much of the 'land' to be reclaimed was originally under 15m/50 feet of fast flowing seawater, gives some insight and perspective as to the scale of the project, physical work and volume of material involved.

Now compare this to Karanja, where the quay wall will be in just 4.5m of water and built to accommodate vessels of 4,000 deadweight tonnes(cargo carrying capacity), while the new JNPT terminal is being built to a specification to handle huge deep sea vessels in excess of 300m in length, with a deadweight exceeding 100,000 tonnes, 15.5m loaded draft, an air draft greater than a 12 storey block of flats, and which have to approach the port quay wall at a closing speed less than 1 metre a minute to avoid sustaining contact damage to the ship and berth infrastructure.

The new JNPT deepwater container terminal expansion project has a budgeted cost of 2,160 crore/£260m inclusive of extensive harbour channel dredging and, is scheduled to open barely two years from the commencement of construction.

By contrast, at Karanja, Skil/MPL commenced construction in September 2013, and after 3.5 years they have reclaimed and part prepared 79 acres of mostly foreshore and intertidal zone, and laid around 120m of light specification quay piling, for which management have apparently paid out somewhere currently between £75m and possibly as much as £100m of shareholders cash and debt.(An astonishing state of affairs, considering the contract to build the entire Karanja port facility was awarded to ITD for £57m!)

The next update of the cash position will make extremely interesting reading, considering we now know that no reclamation work was carried out between June 2016 and early Jan 2017, and no quay piling between Sept 2016 through to early Jan 2017, as confirmed by company photographic and written updates - totally contrary to what was claimed in the October 2016 Placing and Open Offer to raise an additional £36m.

[lefrene] 22/3/2017 19:26

Perhaps a role model for our Mr Ghandhi?

[mount teide] 22/3/2017 18:13

Shareholders will draw little 'comfort' from the knowledge that MPL's auditors are the same firm that were satisfied that Globo, the recent huge AIM fraud, apparently had £100m cash in the bank according to management.

Only to be proved spectacularly wrong shortly afterwards, when this turned out to be a work of complete fiction; with the actual amount proving to be loose change as a result of the activities of the CEO, who turned out to be an untrustworthy, brazen crook masquerading as a Silicon valley tech sector guru!

[diku] 22/3/2017 14:58

They like the £ too much!!...Maybe they have different kind of traffic & water & labour....lunch time too hot to work so couple of hours of kip...constant hooting even when no traffic!!...

[mount teide] 22/3/2017 14:42

jim - 'All things being equal would you expect it to cost less to build the port in India or Denmark?'

India - Marine civil engineering salaries are around one third of those in the EU and, labour rates around one sixth.

Labour cost of a marine civil engineering port development contract is typically around 30% to 35% of the total build cost.

Civil engineering build costs in India are currently around 35% of those in North west Europe.

[guernseymoney] 22/3/2017 13:29

Andrew Henderson:

hxxps://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-henderson-1b623559/

[lefrene] 22/3/2017 13:18

The silence from ITD cementation would suggest that they are involved in whatever is going on. Is it possible that this facility is being created to assist ITD when that bridge construction finally gets underway? So where has the money gone? There must be a trail of it. Who has it, and what has it really been used for?

[pj 1] 22/3/2017 12:01

Was there a Finance Director at one point, who left? To be replaced eventually by a Andrew Henderson as Head of Finance, answering directly to the Board, which I assume means he answers to Ghandi. I suspect but do not know, that he is not based anywhere near the Port or India.

Has anyone any information on Andrew Henderson?

[diku] 22/3/2017 11:59

5p another RI and a new company name?...

[jimblack513] 22/3/2017 11:47

So am I right then in thinking that MPL's uncompleted port has already cost 3 times as much as the Danish port is expected to cost in total!

Mount Teide
All things being equal would you expect it to cost less to build the port in India or Denmark?


This stinks to high heaven.

[tradermick1] 20/3/2017 16:58

I was still amazed they raised all that money at 10p and not 5p or lower and also was amazed that one the day it was announced the price traded some 20-30% higher for a while.

[diku] 20/3/2017 16:37

Maybe they planning to do a Bollywood movie stage...only other alternative is a fishy port for fisherman!!...

[waterloo01] 20/3/2017 16:31

Still can't even call it a port but a 'terminal'.

[diku] 20/3/2017 16:24

5p?....time to get more coke & sprite out...

[mount teide] 18/3/2017 11:46

As a shareholder in ITD Cementation - MPL shareholders might like to know i have written to ITD Cementation on three separate occasions in connection with the Karanja Port Development Contract. To request clarification about the information they have put in the public domain concerning the Contract, together with details of the additional scope and schedule of works at Karanja and contract value, related to the recent MPL fund raising exercise, in which ITD Cementation were a participant. The information requested from ITD covered many items including but not restricted to the following:

* Main Contract scope of works

* Scope of Works and value of Additions to the original Contract.

* Details of the average number of personnel on site over the last 12 months(against MPL's claimed 400 to 500),

* Land reclamation and piling stoppages/delays during the last 12 months,

* Construction progress made since June 2016 against the targets detailed in MPL's Placing and Open Offer £36m Fund Raise that ITD Cementation participated in on behalf of their shareholders.

* Revised Karanja contract valuation following the requirement to carry out additional land development work as identified, calculated and costed by ITD and, advised to the Client MPL.

On each occasion i have failed to receive an acknowledgement, never mind a reply.

Unlike most of ITD Cementation's other major contracts, the Karanja Port Development Contract has consistently received very little exposure in any of their official Business updates to the market. Indeed in the original contract notification to the market, ITD described the £57m Karanja contact with SPL/MPL as 'Development of Marine facilities at Karanja Creek' and has never since provided any further detail as to what this actually comprises, unlike nearly all its other main contracts.

[pj 1] 17/3/2017 21:04

I also note in the last update that MPL report that their main contractor ITD is basically working flat out.

Id also note MPL do not claim that they are working flat out on the Port itself.

Just a minor point but cause for concern I'd suggest.

[pj 1] 17/3/2017 20:58

I think it is now fair to post that in January we had verbal reports from a reasonably reliable source that NO WORKS had been undertaken on site for a period of time. Unfortunately, we had no photographic evidence to either support or contradict the reports.

Again, imo, and based on the recent posts, MPL is only undertaking the MINIMUM works required to keep the project alive.

Concerns over the access road (and bridge) were raised with the Company 18 months ago. The answer was that it was not a problem.

Guess what one of the 'excuses' is now........

The

[saucepan] 17/3/2017 19:37

A lot of serious allegations made of late.

Does anyone know an investigative reporter to pass this information onto?

[mount teide] 17/3/2017 19:12

Shareholders circular Placing and Open Offer - October 2016;

OUTLOOK - 'the Directors believe that the Company has sufficient resources to finance the continued construction of the Facility, WITHOUT DELAY, through to the end of the first quarter of 2017'


The FACTS now in the public domain indicate a totally different situation and version of events - when the Directors put out this circular to raise additional funds they knew full well NO LAND RECLAMATION WORK OR QUAY WALL PILING WAS IN FACT TAKING PLACE, and was not going to take place before Jan 2017 at the earliest.

How do we know? The Directors have since kindly provided the market with the evidence.

The photographs put up on the company website on 17 Jan 2017 confirmed the quay wall piling must of stopped in September 2016 and did not restart until Jan 2017 - because the photographs showed just 100m of piling, the same figure the company reported to the market as achieved in Sept 2016 when they updated the market with a progress report via the Interims.

Additionally, NO land reclamation work occurred between June 2016 and Jan 2017, again confirmed by comparing the June 2016 photographs with the January 2017 photographs, which showed the perimeter temporary rock wall still in place and unaltered, and identical reclaimed land footprints.

Why were there no photographic updates between mid June 2016 and mid Jan 2017? Because, other than a small amount of land improvement work, NO Piling or land reclamation work was going on at Karanja, DESPITE management claiming in the Shareholders Circular of Oct 2017 it was progressing WITHOUT DELAY and providing the market with a detailed timetable of near term progress targets they expected to achieve:

By the end of January 2017 the Company expects to have:
• completed the dredging requirement;
• reclaimed 70 per cent. of the land; and
• constructed two berths, one of which will be capable of receiving vessels.

By the end of the first quarter of 2017 the Company expects to have:
• reclaimed 90 per cent. of the land;
• constructed four berths, three of which will be capable of receiving vessels; and
• entered into commercial agreements with end users.

Indeed, such was the Directors confidence that the build out was on track they stated in the October Shareholders Circular (just two months from year end)that:

'Whilst the Directors expect that the Facility will be capable of receiving vessels by the end of this year, the Directors are not forecasting revenues from operations until the end of the third quarter of 2017'

Clearly, in light of the above( many thanks to the company for naively providing the market with the evidence), the October 2017 shareholder circular was clearly an attempt(successful to date), to raise considerable additional funds(£36m) from existing shareholders and the market(at a 96% discount to the IPO price for a physical asset project), through the use of statements that the passage of time and evidence provided by the company has shown the directors knew to be untrue.


This is a blatant MISREPRESENTATION at best( one of a number in the Oct 2016 Shareholders Circular i have reported to the Nomad), and potentially outright FRAUD.

AIMHO DYOR

[tiltonboy] 17/3/2017 18:32

Noticed M & G Recovery Fund has got some. Unfortunately I wasn't at the meeting with Tom Dobell, so didn't get chance to ask him.

[diku] 17/3/2017 18:29

When the current lot of money runs out it will be time to change the company name again!...

[lefrene] 17/3/2017 10:55

phowdo, I agree, and I further suspect that shareholders money has also been diverted in that direction, but to the future benefit of directors and not shareholders. It seems this company has been looted, yet no official body seems the least interested.

[mount teide] 17/3/2017 10:54

phowdo - considering the length of the initial fixed period of contract, it could well be the MOU is with a firm tendering for a contract related to the construction of the proposed Karanja bridge.

And it would not surprise this poster if this firm turns out to be Skil Infrastructure !

[marvelman] 17/3/2017 10:46

"Azalea....My long absence is due to having sold my holdings in two lots at 79p & 78p on 4/2/16 and 11/2/16, respectively; both times at a profit"

What a clown you are. The affrontary that you demonstrate on this and other BB's is incredulous. Get a life and retrain yourself in learning how to tell the truth...at least to youself. If you don't rememember how to do that read the following post from Unwiz.