Dumb question

[hobbyfrmr]

Right from the start, Ceres did not have the balance sheet (assets, cash and share value) to successfully complete this project without strategic alignments. Enter Scoular company. According to press releases, (or how I interpret them), Ceres decided to go for it alone and told Scoular to go play elsewhere.
My guess is Northgate commodities hub will get 70% constructed then Ceres will run out of financing. A well heeled company will step in and finish the project,. Probably not Scoular, by then, they will have moved on to other opportunities.

[oneoff]

Key members of the board of directors have vacated their positions, sold their shares and moved on. Maybe turfed out would be acccurate.

There aren't many tracks in the mud leading to the mancamp; the construction machinery appears idle; and the landscape looks similar to what it entered freeze up last fall. And it was 10 feet of frost in the spring and 4 plus inches of rain on fresh disturbed soil. Insult piled on injury and misery.

They have missed their scheduled startup time and again and it looks more like a case of not enough money to pay the diesel fuel bill.
I agree that someone else is stepping in. Its new management for a start; and a grain elevator probably never was the cornerstone of this developpment. Even though it was initially sold locally in the little bit of gossip that leaked out.
Someone else previously reported the past management group "earned" near 15 million in fees for management; whilst shareholders lost 58 million and profits were never shown.

Profits would have earned another 20% commission on top of the 2% management fee. No wonder the shareholders got pretty disatisfied and revolted about a year ago.

All the euphoria (premier, council, press releases etc) are now quiet as things shake out and get to the squabbling stage.

[Hopperbin]

Oneoff?? Any chance farmers could step in at this point? Fna where are you when you could actually be usefull. Oneoff if someone is losing 30 million on this deal someone else will gain. Keep us posted.

[oneoff]

It is probably safe to say that the rail schedule on both sides of the border is run on oil industry time.

Only difference being that a few US politicians have enough political sense to demand that their constituents be served. Maybe our elected representatives look after their lobbiests; who are then expected; but certainly not directed to fulfil their obligations for service.

Cere's "modus operandi" was to purchase cheap and dispose at great margins. Development funding was to come from profits. The new management team will likely conduct business in a much different way; including borrowing to hasten project development.

But don't forget Scoular and how they were probably treated. I think anyone would be wise to wait and see how much is left after Scoular gets its day in court. And I think that the success of the Stewart Southern Rail is what the former Ceres management (and probably the present team running Ceres is still counting on at Northgate.

But no one has explained the interest that Trans Canada Pipelines has expressed in multiple lines terminating at that same Northgate SK port area. Just doesn't make sense to me to have two supposed competitors sharing the same area.

Remember that this is the "Agriville coffeshop" forum; and so one can speculate that just maybe Trans Canada has already reserved its place to be in the rail transloading business. Expansion of pipelines capacity is increasingly difficult to keep up to anywhere near the requirements of the crazy pace of resource withdrawal (particularly in the US); but also slated for this area.
Lets wait for oil rail transport to lose out to the benefits of pipeline movement of fluids; and then retake the strategic Port of Northgate.

SOMETHING THAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE BY SIMPLY RESERVING Some of the THE PUBLIC LANDS THAT WERE ALREADY IN MUNICIPAL HANDS and which were certainly never intended to be developed by Corus (otherwise now known as Ceres Global Ag.)

But that scenario fell on deaf council ears because the secret deal was already done. And obviously it didn't quite work out as planned; but we can count on no one having any idea of what the outcome will finally be.

[oneoff]

Just like in the grain trade......... blending very light crude (Bakken oil) with tar sands is where the real bucks are. Uniform grades only give access to handling charges. Bringing relative crap up to same grade is much more lucrative. And there is no sense doing that blending by shipping in opposite directions to where the major export markets are.