TXO Plc Share Discussion Threads

[fishermansfriend] 02/7/2015 09:13

lofuw - 06 Jan 2014 - 17:45:19 - 5126 of 7552
DRUNKEN SAILOR - ACTION TAKEN AGAINST DS RE THE PERVERSION OF THE COURSE OF JUSTICE. ALSO BELIEVE HE IS BEING INVESTIGATED FOR OTHER OFFENCES.

Dear Counsel and Mr. Smith (ALIAS DRUNKEN SAILOR AND OTHERS),

I write concerning a series of e-mails sent either directly to Judge Oing or on which Judge Oing is copied regarding this case. Mr. Smith, please cease contacting Judge Oing directly and including him in your e-mail correspondence with the parties in this matter, as he has not given you permission to do so.

Regards,


Samuel Yaggy, Esq.
Assistant Law Clerk to Hon. Jeffrey K. Oing, J.S.C.
New York County Supreme Court, Commercial Division
60 Centre Street
New York, NY 10007
[phone]
[e-mail]

lofuw - 06 Jan 2014 - 19:56:27 - 5128 of 7552
Hello Yarsan. I'm a recent investor and i'm intrigued with the US legal case. I have noticed that most days you have been constantly attacking the company. So i guess you are not a shareholder but paid to write bad press on the company !

I'm just learning, but are you the same as Drunken Sailor (Adrian Smith) or just an affiliate of the same organisation ? You pretend you know what you are talking about. I'm surprised you don't know the answers to your own questions. Not sure what it all your questions mean anyway. They look like some form of splitting hairs.

I can't help you with the other points you have. I suggest you ask the company or their brokers, so you can write with better credibility on the blogs.

lofuw - 07 Jan 2014 - 19:06:41 - 5194 of 7552
teb

Whilst I agree with your threads. Unfortunately there is a good reason why they aren't disclosing who they are or whom pays for their services.

I'm familiar with US securities law's and i can assure you it is a potential criminal offense if someone, in exchange for an undisclosed fee (that is, a bribe) touts a share or denigrates it in an effort to manipulate the price. I'm aware of a number of years ago, a man with a syndicated radio show, was criminally convicted for touting stock on air without disclosing that he had been paid to do so and went to jail for a number of years. Also, there was the case fifteen years ago in which a columnist for the Wall Street Journal was convicted for doing the same thing.

When you add in to their libel and defamatory issues, the tortuous business interference legislation you have in the U.S. then it all begins to add up.

lofuw 2 Jul'15 - 09:49 - 7551 of 7551 1 0

TXO, the AIM-quoted [not anymore] energy resource and clean technology investment company

Company stooge being paid to Spam TXO boards in the hope that some mug punter will be foolish enough to exercise warrants.

Nobody has ever investigated me, but TB had a few awkward questions to answer from several authorities during his scamming career.

[lofuw] 02/7/2015 08:49

TXO, notes the recent press article in the Bahamas with respect to funds of up to $10 million being allocated by the Bahamian Government to clean up an oil spill at a location known as Clifton Pier. The article refers to the Grand Bahama Group ("GBG") subsidiary, Morgan Oil Marine ("MOM") as Morgan Oil.

The article can be read in full at:

hxxp://www.tribune242.com/news/2015/jan/30/government-gives-10m-clearing-oil-spills-clifton/

MOM has confirmed that it is working with the Bahamian Government on a programme to remediate an oil spill at Clifton Pier. It has made no further comment regarding the potential contract of works at this stage. The opportunity was referred to in the Company's Trading Update dated 21 January 2015 and further announcements will be made as appropriate.

TXO regards this development as very encouraging for GBG and it complements the relationships GBG has already established in the Bahamas with other companies. These include an international oil group, a worldwide shipping company and a major commodity trading house.

[lofuw] 02/7/2015 08:48

TXO, the AIM-quoted energy resource and clean technology investment company, notes the recent press article in the Bahamas with respect to funds of up to $10 million being allocated by the Bahamian Government to clean up an oil spill at a location known as Clifton Pier. The article refers to the Grand Bahama Group ("GBG") subsidiary, Morgan Oil Marine ("MOM") as Morgan Oil.

The article can be read in full at:

hxxp://www.tribune242.com/news/2015/jan/30/government-gives-10m-clearing-oil-spills-clifton/

MOM has confirmed that it is working with the Bahamian Government on a programme to remediate an oil spill at Clifton Pier. It has made no further comment regarding the potential contract of works at this stage. The opportunity was referred to in the Company's Trading Update dated 21 January 2015 and further announcements will be made as appropriate.

TXO regards this development as very encouraging for GBG and it complements the relationships GBG has already established in the Bahamas with other companies. These include an international oil group, a worldwide shipping company and a major commodity trading house.

[lofuw] 02/7/2015 08:05

Monday, November 18, 2013

By NEIL HARTNELL – Tribune Business Editor, [e-mail]

Valuing the Bahamas Electricity Corporation’s (BEC) environmental liabilities at $100 million is a “conservative” estimate, a well-known attorney warning it was a “pipe dream” to believe the Government would realise top price from its partial privatisation.

Romauld Ferreira, an attorney specialising in environmental law, told Tribune Business that BEC’s pollution legacy, combined with its many other multi-million dollar liabilities, meant the Corporation was “not an attractive sale”.

Describing the environmental liabilities as “a major hurdle” to reforming BEC and the wider Bahamian energy sector, Mr Ferreira said the six bidders in the current process could use their existence as a negotiating tool to reduce their price and planned investment in the utility.

He was speaking after Simon Townend, a KPMG (Bahamas) partner and managing director of its corporate finance arm in the Caribbean, confirmed last week that liabilities arising from oil spills and other pollution inflicted by BEC “could be over $100 million”, yet were currently unknown.

KPMG is a key adviser to the Government on BEC’s restructuring/partial privatisation, and Mr Townend indicated to a Bahamas Institute of Chartered Accountants (BICA) conference that the winning bidder(s) could face a massive unknown exposure.

“We have these very significant environmental issues, not least at Clifton Pier, but elsewhere. These environmental issues have built up over many, many years,” Mr Townend said.

“It’s going to take a lot of work and money to figure out what the damage is. It could be $40 million, it could be $80 million, it could be over $100 million to sort out the environmental issues. But we don’t know what the figure is until the work is done.”

The six remaining BEC bidders are likely to be fully aware of the environmental legacy they will inherit, both from disclosures made during the process and their own due diligence.

Such environmental liabilities are likely to have been factored into their pricing proposals, which were due to be submitted to the Government on Friday.

“I think $100 million is conservative,” Mr Ferreira told Tribune Business of the likely value of BEC’s environmental liabilities. “That is a major hurdle to privatisation, the environmental liabilities.

“They would mean that the people who are looking to buy BEC can ask the Government to discount it by $100 million, whatever it is.

“It’s a bargaining tool, and means the idea of selling BEC for cash is a pipe dream. It will be an equity swap.”

Mr Ferreira said the Government would likely have to indemnify the winning BEC bidder(s) “to sweeten the pot”.

Drawing upon his experiences when he was employed at the Corporation, he added: “At Blue Hill Road [power plant], they must have lost two million gallons of fuel, and to clean that up, with Clifton Pier, I don’t know how much they’ve lost.”

Mr Ferreira said that apart from the spillage/leakage of fuel, BEC had in the past engaged in practices such as the dumping of oil in emulsion wells. And boilers had also been used to burn waste oil to produce electricity.

“Anyone visiting there, you can see egregious examples of oil spills at Clifton Pier,” he added. “At Clifton Pier they have over 20 feet of oil in some places. To manage that in perpetuity requires time and resources, and will take away from your core business.

“I remember working with the Corporation, going to Clifton Pier for the first time, and they had very bad environmental management practices. The managers are not evaluated on environmental performance.”

Mr Ferreira also recalled an incident when Clifton Pier was pumping bunker diesel to its fellow power station at Blue Hills.

Because no one told Clifton Pier to stop pumping, diesel fuel overflowed its tanks “on to the ground for at least half an hour”. Yet there were no ramifications or firings.

Mr Ferreira told Tribune Business that BEC’s fuel surcharge frequently included costs to cover the loss or spillage of fuel, which was the Corporation could not explain to customers how it was calculated.

“There’s an Inter-American Development Bank study showing the cost of fuel increased by 20 per cent, and the fuel surcharge increased by 170 per cent,” he added. “What they charge you for is not just the cost of fuel.”

Mr Townend last week said BEC’s unknown environmental liabilities added to the Corporation’s $350 million debt burden, some $180 million of which is government guaranteed, and its $81 million employee pension plan deficit.

Picking up the same theme, Mr Ferreira told Tribune Business: “What would be interesting to note is you have these potential liabilities with the pension plan the employees don’t contribute to, you have overstaffing, you have secretaries earning $66,000 and people being overpaid to work there.

“You have all kinds of problems. When you couple this with the fact that on most islands, they are not making a profit, and electricity generation is subsidised by New Providence, it’s not an attractive sale.

“You would need very skilful negotiators experienced in the industry to deal with it [BEC’s privatisation and restructuring] effectively. That’s a very complicated situation. I’m not saying the skill set’s not in the country, but I have my doubts that the skill sets are in the Government.”

Mr Townend last week explained that the Government had chosen to split BEC into two, a generation arm and separate transmission/distribution arm, as a means of ensuring attention would be paid to the latter business.

He said that virtually all the 60-plus bids the Government had previously received, unsolicited, focused on independent power producers (IPPs) selling the electricity they produced to BEC.

This, Mr Townend said, threatened to leave the issues with BEC’s transmission and distribution business untouched. To prevent this, the Government hired KPMG and other advisers to establish a structured process, and ensure a management/operating partner for the transmission side would be found.

Mr Townend added that splitting BEC into two would encourage specialisation and greater efficiency, while also removing “the inherent conflict of interest” that would exist if it remained one single entity.

If that happened, the danger was that BEC’s transmission and distribution arm would continue to only buy electricity from itself, squeezing out IPPs and preventing the benefits from price competition from being realised.

Likening the management contract for the transmission/distribution operation to the arrangement with Vantage Airport Services over the Nassau Airport Development Company (NAD), Mr Townend said the Government had yet to determine the equity stake it would grant to a joint venture partner on the generation side.

[lofuw] 02/7/2015 08:04

THE Bahamas Reef Environmental Educational Foundation yesterday released a photo of a visitor’s legs partially covered in oil following a snorkelling trip off Clifton Bay, highlighting the persistent environmental threat oil spills are posing to the area.


#BREEF Executive Director Casuarina McKinney-Lambert said the oil spill has been “unbearable,” negatively impacting the “precious marine environment, human health, livelihoods and the reputation of The Bahamas around the world.”

#This comes despite the fact that the government pledged $10m towards the removal of oil from waters off Clifton Pier in January in response to the longstanding problem.

#Last year, there were complaints that significant amounts of oil washed ashore on the nearby Adelaide Beach.

#Mrs McKinney-Lambert said: “BREEF has been advocating for the clean-up of this environmental disaster for many years, and is hopeful that the clean-up will start soon. There is no time to wait.

#“Last year, BREEF installed the Coral Reef Sculpture Garden to draw attention to critical threats to the marine environment, particularly the use of fossil fuels that can contaminate the environment with spills, and whose combustion changes the global climate.

#“We were very pleased to hear that the prime minister has committed funds for the clean-up, and we are anxiously awaiting for it to result in remediation of the current situation, and on the ground measures to ensure that oil does not leak into the water in the future.

#“This is critically important. BREEF recognises that the oil spills at Clifton have been going on for many years, and that it will take a number of steps to effectively fix this problem.”

#She added: “The installation of BREEF’s Coral Reef Sculpture Garden generated tremendous positive publicity for The Bahamas around the world with print and online media reporting on the story, with over 100 stories in dozens of countries.”

#The Sculpture Garden is home to the world’s largest underwater sculpture – “Ocean Atlas” by Jason deCaires Taylor.

#“The media coverage has inspired many people to visit the country to enjoy our marine environment, and has raised the reputation of the Bahamian artists Andret John and Willicey Tynes who contributed important pieces to the sculpture garden,” she added.

#“The underwater sculptures are now turning into living reefs and BREEF is monitoring both the growth of new corals on this underwater art, as well as monitoring the oil that contaminates the area daily.

#“It is imperative that local and international visitors leave with a positive impression and an enthusiasm to visit again, rather than covered in oil.”

[lofuw] 02/7/2015 08:01

THE Bahamas Reef Environmental Educational Foundation yesterday released a photo of a visitor’s legs partially covered in oil following a snorkelling trip off Clifton Bay, highlighting the persistent environmental threat oil spills are posing to the area.


#BREEF Executive Director Casuarina McKinney-Lambert said the oil spill has been “unbearable,” negatively impacting the “precious marine environment, human health, livelihoods and the reputation of The Bahamas around the world.”

#This comes despite the fact that the government pledged $10m towards the removal of oil from waters off Clifton Pier in January in response to the longstanding problem.

#Last year, there were complaints that significant amounts of oil washed ashore on the nearby Adelaide Beach.

#Mrs McKinney-Lambert said: “BREEF has been advocating for the clean-up of this environmental disaster for many years, and is hopeful that the clean-up will start soon. There is no time to wait.

#“Last year, BREEF installed the Coral Reef Sculpture Garden to draw attention to critical threats to the marine environment, particularly the use of fossil fuels that can contaminate the environment with spills, and whose combustion changes the global climate.

#“We were very pleased to hear that the prime minister has committed funds for the clean-up, and we are anxiously awaiting for it to result in remediation of the current situation, and on the ground measures to ensure that oil does not leak into the water in the future.

#“This is critically important. BREEF recognises that the oil spills at Clifton have been going on for many years, and that it will take a number of steps to effectively fix this problem.”

#She added: “The installation of BREEF’s Coral Reef Sculpture Garden generated tremendous positive publicity for The Bahamas around the world with print and online media reporting on the story, with over 100 stories in dozens of countries.”

#The Sculpture Garden is home to the world’s largest underwater sculpture – “Ocean Atlas” by Jason deCaires Taylor.

#“The media coverage has inspired many people to visit the country to enjoy our marine environment, and has raised the reputation of the Bahamian artists Andret John and Willicey Tynes who contributed important pieces to the sculpture garden,” she added.

#“The underwater sculptures are now turning into living reefs and BREEF is monitoring both the growth of new corals on this underwater art, as well as monitoring the oil that contaminates the area daily.

#“It is imperative that local and international visitors leave with a positive impression and an enthusiasm to visit again, rather than covered in oil.”

[lofuw] 02/7/2015 08:00

Monday, November 18, 2013

By NEIL HARTNELL – Tribune Business Editor, [e-mail]

Valuing the Bahamas Electricity Corporation’s (BEC) environmental liabilities at $100 million is a “conservative” estimate, a well-known attorney warning it was a “pipe dream” to believe the Government would realise top price from its partial privatisation.

Romauld Ferreira, an attorney specialising in environmental law, told Tribune Business that BEC’s pollution legacy, combined with its many other multi-million dollar liabilities, meant the Corporation was “not an attractive sale”.

Describing the environmental liabilities as “a major hurdle” to reforming BEC and the wider Bahamian energy sector, Mr Ferreira said the six bidders in the current process could use their existence as a negotiating tool to reduce their price and planned investment in the utility.

He was speaking after Simon Townend, a KPMG (Bahamas) partner and managing director of its corporate finance arm in the Caribbean, confirmed last week that liabilities arising from oil spills and other pollution inflicted by BEC “could be over $100 million”, yet were currently unknown.

KPMG is a key adviser to the Government on BEC’s restructuring/partial privatisation, and Mr Townend indicated to a Bahamas Institute of Chartered Accountants (BICA) conference that the winning bidder(s) could face a massive unknown exposure.

“We have these very significant environmental issues, not least at Clifton Pier, but elsewhere. These environmental issues have built up over many, many years,” Mr Townend said.

“It’s going to take a lot of work and money to figure out what the damage is. It could be $40 million, it could be $80 million, it could be over $100 million to sort out the environmental issues. But we don’t know what the figure is until the work is done.”

The six remaining BEC bidders are likely to be fully aware of the environmental legacy they will inherit, both from disclosures made during the process and their own due diligence.

Such environmental liabilities are likely to have been factored into their pricing proposals, which were due to be submitted to the Government on Friday.

“I think $100 million is conservative,” Mr Ferreira told Tribune Business of the likely value of BEC’s environmental liabilities. “That is a major hurdle to privatisation, the environmental liabilities.

“They would mean that the people who are looking to buy BEC can ask the Government to discount it by $100 million, whatever it is.

“It’s a bargaining tool, and means the idea of selling BEC for cash is a pipe dream. It will be an equity swap.”

Mr Ferreira said the Government would likely have to indemnify the winning BEC bidder(s) “to sweeten the pot”.

Drawing upon his experiences when he was employed at the Corporation, he added: “At Blue Hill Road [power plant], they must have lost two million gallons of fuel, and to clean that up, with Clifton Pier, I don’t know how much they’ve lost.”

Mr Ferreira said that apart from the spillage/leakage of fuel, BEC had in the past engaged in practices such as the dumping of oil in emulsion wells. And boilers had also been used to burn waste oil to produce electricity.

“Anyone visiting there, you can see egregious examples of oil spills at Clifton Pier,” he added. “At Clifton Pier they have over 20 feet of oil in some places. To manage that in perpetuity requires time and resources, and will take away from your core business.

“I remember working with the Corporation, going to Clifton Pier for the first time, and they had very bad environmental management practices. The managers are not evaluated on environmental performance.”

Mr Ferreira also recalled an incident when Clifton Pier was pumping bunker diesel to its fellow power station at Blue Hills.

Because no one told Clifton Pier to stop pumping, diesel fuel overflowed its tanks “on to the ground for at least half an hour”. Yet there were no ramifications or firings.

Mr Ferreira told Tribune Business that BEC’s fuel surcharge frequently included costs to cover the loss or spillage of fuel, which was the Corporation could not explain to customers how it was calculated.

“There’s an Inter-American Development Bank study showing the cost of fuel increased by 20 per cent, and the fuel surcharge increased by 170 per cent,” he added. “What they charge you for is not just the cost of fuel.”

Mr Townend last week said BEC’s unknown environmental liabilities added to the Corporation’s $350 million debt burden, some $180 million of which is government guaranteed, and its $81 million employee pension plan deficit.

Picking up the same theme, Mr Ferreira told Tribune Business: “What would be interesting to note is you have these potential liabilities with the pension plan the employees don’t contribute to, you have overstaffing, you have secretaries earning $66,000 and people being overpaid to work there.

“You have all kinds of problems. When you couple this with the fact that on most islands, they are not making a profit, and electricity generation is subsidised by New Providence, it’s not an attractive sale.

“You would need very skilful negotiators experienced in the industry to deal with it [BEC’s privatisation and restructuring] effectively. That’s a very complicated situation. I’m not saying the skill set’s not in the country, but I have my doubts that the skill sets are in the Government.”

Mr Townend last week explained that the Government had chosen to split BEC into two, a generation arm and separate transmission/distribution arm, as a means of ensuring attention would be paid to the latter business.

He said that virtually all the 60-plus bids the Government had previously received, unsolicited, focused on independent power producers (IPPs) selling the electricity they produced to BEC.

This, Mr Townend said, threatened to leave the issues with BEC’s transmission and distribution business untouched. To prevent this, the Government hired KPMG and other advisers to establish a structured process, and ensure a management/operating partner for the transmission side would be found.

Mr Townend added that splitting BEC into two would encourage specialisation and greater efficiency, while also removing “the inherent conflict of interest” that would exist if it remained one single entity.

If that happened, the danger was that BEC’s transmission and distribution arm would continue to only buy electricity from itself, squeezing out IPPs and preventing the benefits from price competition from being realised.

Likening the management contract for the transmission/distribution operation to the arrangement with Vantage Airport Services over the Nassau Airport Development Company (NAD), Mr Townend said the Government had yet to determine the equity stake it would grant to a joint venture partner on the generation side.

[fishermansfriend] 02/7/2015 06:42

wow spamming the boards late at night that is real desperation!

More effort on producing the annual report so that the company were not fined by Companies House would have been a more profitable use of company resources.

[fishermansfriend] 02/7/2015 06:41

wow spamming the boards late at night that is real desperation!

More effort on producing the annual report so that the company were not fined by Companies House would have been a more profitable use of company resources.

[lofuw] 01/7/2015 21:16

THE Bahamas Reef Environmental Educational Foundation yesterday released a photo of a visitor’s legs partially covered in oil following a snorkelling trip off Clifton Bay, highlighting the persistent environmental threat oil spills are posing to the area.


#BREEF Executive Director Casuarina McKinney-Lambert said the oil spill has been “unbearable,” negatively impacting the “precious marine environment, human health, livelihoods and the reputation of The Bahamas around the world.”

#This comes despite the fact that the government pledged $10m towards the removal of oil from waters off Clifton Pier in January in response to the longstanding problem.

#Last year, there were complaints that significant amounts of oil washed ashore on the nearby Adelaide Beach.

#Mrs McKinney-Lambert said: “BREEF has been advocating for the clean-up of this environmental disaster for many years, and is hopeful that the clean-up will start soon. There is no time to wait.

#“Last year, BREEF installed the Coral Reef Sculpture Garden to draw attention to critical threats to the marine environment, particularly the use of fossil fuels that can contaminate the environment with spills, and whose combustion changes the global climate.

#“We were very pleased to hear that the prime minister has committed funds for the clean-up, and we are anxiously awaiting for it to result in remediation of the current situation, and on the ground measures to ensure that oil does not leak into the water in the future.

#“This is critically important. BREEF recognises that the oil spills at Clifton have been going on for many years, and that it will take a number of steps to effectively fix this problem.”

#She added: “The installation of BREEF’s Coral Reef Sculpture Garden generated tremendous positive publicity for The Bahamas around the world with print and online media reporting on the story, with over 100 stories in dozens of countries.”

#The Sculpture Garden is home to the world’s largest underwater sculpture – “Ocean Atlas” by Jason deCaires Taylor.

#“The media coverage has inspired many people to visit the country to enjoy our marine environment, and has raised the reputation of the Bahamian artists Andret John and Willicey Tynes who contributed important pieces to the sculpture garden,” she added.

#“The underwater sculptures are now turning into living reefs and BREEF is monitoring both the growth of new corals on this underwater art, as well as monitoring the oil that contaminates the area daily.

#“It is imperative that local and international visitors leave with a positive impression and an enthusiasm to visit again, rather than covered in oil.”

[lofuw] 01/7/2015 21:15

Monday, November 18, 2013

By NEIL HARTNELL – Tribune Business Editor, [e-mail]

Valuing the Bahamas Electricity Corporation’s (BEC) environmental liabilities at $100 million is a “conservative” estimate, a well-known attorney warning it was a “pipe dream” to believe the Government would realise top price from its partial privatisation.

Romauld Ferreira, an attorney specialising in environmental law, told Tribune Business that BEC’s pollution legacy, combined with its many other multi-million dollar liabilities, meant the Corporation was “not an attractive sale”.

Describing the environmental liabilities as “a major hurdle” to reforming BEC and the wider Bahamian energy sector, Mr Ferreira said the six bidders in the current process could use their existence as a negotiating tool to reduce their price and planned investment in the utility.

He was speaking after Simon Townend, a KPMG (Bahamas) partner and managing director of its corporate finance arm in the Caribbean, confirmed last week that liabilities arising from oil spills and other pollution inflicted by BEC “could be over $100 million”, yet were currently unknown.

KPMG is a key adviser to the Government on BEC’s restructuring/partial privatisation, and Mr Townend indicated to a Bahamas Institute of Chartered Accountants (BICA) conference that the winning bidder(s) could face a massive unknown exposure.

“We have these very significant environmental issues, not least at Clifton Pier, but elsewhere. These environmental issues have built up over many, many years,” Mr Townend said.

“It’s going to take a lot of work and money to figure out what the damage is. It could be $40 million, it could be $80 million, it could be over $100 million to sort out the environmental issues. But we don’t know what the figure is until the work is done.”

The six remaining BEC bidders are likely to be fully aware of the environmental legacy they will inherit, both from disclosures made during the process and their own due diligence.

Such environmental liabilities are likely to have been factored into their pricing proposals, which were due to be submitted to the Government on Friday.

“I think $100 million is conservative,” Mr Ferreira told Tribune Business of the likely value of BEC’s environmental liabilities. “That is a major hurdle to privatisation, the environmental liabilities.

“They would mean that the people who are looking to buy BEC can ask the Government to discount it by $100 million, whatever it is.

“It’s a bargaining tool, and means the idea of selling BEC for cash is a pipe dream. It will be an equity swap.”

Mr Ferreira said the Government would likely have to indemnify the winning BEC bidder(s) “to sweeten the pot”.

Drawing upon his experiences when he was employed at the Corporation, he added: “At Blue Hill Road [power plant], they must have lost two million gallons of fuel, and to clean that up, with Clifton Pier, I don’t know how much they’ve lost.”

Mr Ferreira said that apart from the spillage/leakage of fuel, BEC had in the past engaged in practices such as the dumping of oil in emulsion wells. And boilers had also been used to burn waste oil to produce electricity.

“Anyone visiting there, you can see egregious examples of oil spills at Clifton Pier,” he added. “At Clifton Pier they have over 20 feet of oil in some places. To manage that in perpetuity requires time and resources, and will take away from your core business.

“I remember working with the Corporation, going to Clifton Pier for the first time, and they had very bad environmental management practices. The managers are not evaluated on environmental performance.”

Mr Ferreira also recalled an incident when Clifton Pier was pumping bunker diesel to its fellow power station at Blue Hills.

Because no one told Clifton Pier to stop pumping, diesel fuel overflowed its tanks “on to the ground for at least half an hour”. Yet there were no ramifications or firings.

Mr Ferreira told Tribune Business that BEC’s fuel surcharge frequently included costs to cover the loss or spillage of fuel, which was the Corporation could not explain to customers how it was calculated.

“There’s an Inter-American Development Bank study showing the cost of fuel increased by 20 per cent, and the fuel surcharge increased by 170 per cent,” he added. “What they charge you for is not just the cost of fuel.”

Mr Townend last week said BEC’s unknown environmental liabilities added to the Corporation’s $350 million debt burden, some $180 million of which is government guaranteed, and its $81 million employee pension plan deficit.

Picking up the same theme, Mr Ferreira told Tribune Business: “What would be interesting to note is you have these potential liabilities with the pension plan the employees don’t contribute to, you have overstaffing, you have secretaries earning $66,000 and people being overpaid to work there.

“You have all kinds of problems. When you couple this with the fact that on most islands, they are not making a profit, and electricity generation is subsidised by New Providence, it’s not an attractive sale.

“You would need very skilful negotiators experienced in the industry to deal with it [BEC’s privatisation and restructuring] effectively. That’s a very complicated situation. I’m not saying the skill set’s not in the country, but I have my doubts that the skill sets are in the Government.”

Mr Townend last week explained that the Government had chosen to split BEC into two, a generation arm and separate transmission/distribution arm, as a means of ensuring attention would be paid to the latter business.

He said that virtually all the 60-plus bids the Government had previously received, unsolicited, focused on independent power producers (IPPs) selling the electricity they produced to BEC.

This, Mr Townend said, threatened to leave the issues with BEC’s transmission and distribution business untouched. To prevent this, the Government hired KPMG and other advisers to establish a structured process, and ensure a management/operating partner for the transmission side would be found.

Mr Townend added that splitting BEC into two would encourage specialisation and greater efficiency, while also removing “the inherent conflict of interest” that would exist if it remained one single entity.

If that happened, the danger was that BEC’s transmission and distribution arm would continue to only buy electricity from itself, squeezing out IPPs and preventing the benefits from price competition from being realised.

Likening the management contract for the transmission/distribution operation to the arrangement with Vantage Airport Services over the Nassau Airport Development Company (NAD), Mr Townend said the Government had yet to determine the equity stake it would grant to a joint venture partner on the generation side.

[lofuw] 01/7/2015 21:14

THE Bahamas Reef Environmental Educational Foundation yesterday released a photo of a visitor’s legs partially covered in oil following a snorkelling trip off Clifton Bay, highlighting the persistent environmental threat oil spills are posing to the area.


#BREEF Executive Director Casuarina McKinney-Lambert said the oil spill has been “unbearable,” negatively impacting the “precious marine environment, human health, livelihoods and the reputation of The Bahamas around the world.”

#This comes despite the fact that the government pledged $10m towards the removal of oil from waters off Clifton Pier in January in response to the longstanding problem.

#Last year, there were complaints that significant amounts of oil washed ashore on the nearby Adelaide Beach.

#Mrs McKinney-Lambert said: “BREEF has been advocating for the clean-up of this environmental disaster for many years, and is hopeful that the clean-up will start soon. There is no time to wait.

#“Last year, BREEF installed the Coral Reef Sculpture Garden to draw attention to critical threats to the marine environment, particularly the use of fossil fuels that can contaminate the environment with spills, and whose combustion changes the global climate.

#“We were very pleased to hear that the prime minister has committed funds for the clean-up, and we are anxiously awaiting for it to result in remediation of the current situation, and on the ground measures to ensure that oil does not leak into the water in the future.

#“This is critically important. BREEF recognises that the oil spills at Clifton have been going on for many years, and that it will take a number of steps to effectively fix this problem.”

#She added: “The installation of BREEF’s Coral Reef Sculpture Garden generated tremendous positive publicity for The Bahamas around the world with print and online media reporting on the story, with over 100 stories in dozens of countries.”

#The Sculpture Garden is home to the world’s largest underwater sculpture – “Ocean Atlas” by Jason deCaires Taylor.

#“The media coverage has inspired many people to visit the country to enjoy our marine environment, and has raised the reputation of the Bahamian artists Andret John and Willicey Tynes who contributed important pieces to the sculpture garden,” she added.

#“The underwater sculptures are now turning into living reefs and BREEF is monitoring both the growth of new corals on this underwater art, as well as monitoring the oil that contaminates the area daily.

#“It is imperative that local and international visitors leave with a positive impression and an enthusiasm to visit again, rather than covered in oil.”

[lofuw] 01/7/2015 21:12

Monday, November 18, 2013

By NEIL HARTNELL – Tribune Business Editor, [e-mail]

Valuing the Bahamas Electricity Corporation’s (BEC) environmental liabilities at $100 million is a “conservative” estimate, a well-known attorney warning it was a “pipe dream” to believe the Government would realise top price from its partial privatisation.

Romauld Ferreira, an attorney specialising in environmental law, told Tribune Business that BEC’s pollution legacy, combined with its many other multi-million dollar liabilities, meant the Corporation was “not an attractive sale”.

Describing the environmental liabilities as “a major hurdle” to reforming BEC and the wider Bahamian energy sector, Mr Ferreira said the six bidders in the current process could use their existence as a negotiating tool to reduce their price and planned investment in the utility.

He was speaking after Simon Townend, a KPMG (Bahamas) partner and managing director of its corporate finance arm in the Caribbean, confirmed last week that liabilities arising from oil spills and other pollution inflicted by BEC “could be over $100 million”, yet were currently unknown.

KPMG is a key adviser to the Government on BEC’s restructuring/partial privatisation, and Mr Townend indicated to a Bahamas Institute of Chartered Accountants (BICA) conference that the winning bidder(s) could face a massive unknown exposure.

“We have these very significant environmental issues, not least at Clifton Pier, but elsewhere. These environmental issues have built up over many, many years,” Mr Townend said.

“It’s going to take a lot of work and money to figure out what the damage is. It could be $40 million, it could be $80 million, it could be over $100 million to sort out the environmental issues. But we don’t know what the figure is until the work is done.”

The six remaining BEC bidders are likely to be fully aware of the environmental legacy they will inherit, both from disclosures made during the process and their own due diligence.

Such environmental liabilities are likely to have been factored into their pricing proposals, which were due to be submitted to the Government on Friday.

“I think $100 million is conservative,” Mr Ferreira told Tribune Business of the likely value of BEC’s environmental liabilities. “That is a major hurdle to privatisation, the environmental liabilities.

“They would mean that the people who are looking to buy BEC can ask the Government to discount it by $100 million, whatever it is.

“It’s a bargaining tool, and means the idea of selling BEC for cash is a pipe dream. It will be an equity swap.”

Mr Ferreira said the Government would likely have to indemnify the winning BEC bidder(s) “to sweeten the pot”.

Drawing upon his experiences when he was employed at the Corporation, he added: “At Blue Hill Road [power plant], they must have lost two million gallons of fuel, and to clean that up, with Clifton Pier, I don’t know how much they’ve lost.”

Mr Ferreira said that apart from the spillage/leakage of fuel, BEC had in the past engaged in practices such as the dumping of oil in emulsion wells. And boilers had also been used to burn waste oil to produce electricity.

“Anyone visiting there, you can see egregious examples of oil spills at Clifton Pier,” he added. “At Clifton Pier they have over 20 feet of oil in some places. To manage that in perpetuity requires time and resources, and will take away from your core business.

“I remember working with the Corporation, going to Clifton Pier for the first time, and they had very bad environmental management practices. The managers are not evaluated on environmental performance.”

Mr Ferreira also recalled an incident when Clifton Pier was pumping bunker diesel to its fellow power station at Blue Hills.

Because no one told Clifton Pier to stop pumping, diesel fuel overflowed its tanks “on to the ground for at least half an hour”. Yet there were no ramifications or firings.

Mr Ferreira told Tribune Business that BEC’s fuel surcharge frequently included costs to cover the loss or spillage of fuel, which was the Corporation could not explain to customers how it was calculated.

“There’s an Inter-American Development Bank study showing the cost of fuel increased by 20 per cent, and the fuel surcharge increased by 170 per cent,” he added. “What they charge you for is not just the cost of fuel.”

Mr Townend last week said BEC’s unknown environmental liabilities added to the Corporation’s $350 million debt burden, some $180 million of which is government guaranteed, and its $81 million employee pension plan deficit.

Picking up the same theme, Mr Ferreira told Tribune Business: “What would be interesting to note is you have these potential liabilities with the pension plan the employees don’t contribute to, you have overstaffing, you have secretaries earning $66,000 and people being overpaid to work there.

“You have all kinds of problems. When you couple this with the fact that on most islands, they are not making a profit, and electricity generation is subsidised by New Providence, it’s not an attractive sale.

“You would need very skilful negotiators experienced in the industry to deal with it [BEC’s privatisation and restructuring] effectively. That’s a very complicated situation. I’m not saying the skill set’s not in the country, but I have my doubts that the skill sets are in the Government.”

Mr Townend last week explained that the Government had chosen to split BEC into two, a generation arm and separate transmission/distribution arm, as a means of ensuring attention would be paid to the latter business.

He said that virtually all the 60-plus bids the Government had previously received, unsolicited, focused on independent power producers (IPPs) selling the electricity they produced to BEC.

This, Mr Townend said, threatened to leave the issues with BEC’s transmission and distribution business untouched. To prevent this, the Government hired KPMG and other advisers to establish a structured process, and ensure a management/operating partner for the transmission side would be found.

Mr Townend added that splitting BEC into two would encourage specialisation and greater efficiency, while also removing “the inherent conflict of interest” that would exist if it remained one single entity.

If that happened, the danger was that BEC’s transmission and distribution arm would continue to only buy electricity from itself, squeezing out IPPs and preventing the benefits from price competition from being realised.

Likening the management contract for the transmission/distribution operation to the arrangement with Vantage Airport Services over the Nassau Airport Development Company (NAD), Mr Townend said the Government had yet to determine the equity stake it would grant to a joint venture partner on the generation side.

[fishermansfriend] 01/7/2015 19:28

Oh look the company stooge is working over time - I hope he is getting paid for it and not just in worthless TXO shares.

You can smell the desperation to get some of those warrants exercised.

Produce the annual report and then produce some interims to Mar 15 (not that you have to any more) then we can see exactly why you are so desperate - Big debts still to repay in Oct and auditors won't sign off on remaining a going concern got anything to do with the desperation?