Forum Archive Index - October 2003

["tennyson@caverock.net.nz" <tennyson@caverock.net.nz>]

Hi Marilyn,

> 
>The current directors seem too blase about the cost overruns 
>with the coal loading upgrade. I find it difficult to believe that
> former chairman Brent Layton would have been as relaxed 
>about the issue as the  current directors.
>

Perhaps.   I wasn't a shareholder in LPC when Brent was at the helm, 
so couldn't comment.  My understanding of the problem, from Chris 
Conner,  was that the unseasonal wet weather has raised the water 
table which caused unexpected problems with digging out a pit 30m 
below sea level.  

However, if we could have got Brent to sit in a chair and command the 
sea to go back King Canute style, or perhaps do an 'anti rain' dance to 
stop all the precipitation falling I would have been all for it.   Short of 
that I'm not sure what you would have expected him to do.

> 
>I am also concerned about the skills of some of the directors. Several
>of them have sat at the boardroom tables of companies where the
>results could be charitably described as mixed.
>

With the resignation of David Viles, there is now no LPC full time staff 
member on the board and no-one with any experience in the industry.  
Have I got that correct?

> 
> Nautical scuttlebut;
> 
>While quaffing refreshments at the after match function an informed
>source, not part of LPC, gave me the drum on P & O's flouncing off to
>Port Chalmers with its large boat container service.
> 
>Seems P & 0 have lost market share. They are having trouble 
achieving
>full northbound loadings. Schedules have been slipping. The 
colonials
>have also sprung a nasty surprise (not) with higher than world 
average
>density of container loadings. Seems we load containers with heavy
>stuff like butter, cheese, dumped wool and frozen meat. The new 
ships
>are designed to just squeeze through the Panama Canal. All the 
heavy
>Kiwi cargo causes the ship to bend in the middle like a banana and 
so
>the ships are having trouble passing through the locks.
>

We have too much heavy farm product going across the Canterbury 
docks?   It doesn't seem like we can do much about that!  I guess that 
if shipping dish drawers out of the F&P plant in Mosgiel to Europe 
enables the latest generation of P&O ships through the locks, we can't 
do much about it.    Short of those Europeans developing a taste for 
'Lite Butter', LPC appears doomed  ;-)

> 
>PS At next years meeting i will wear some of my friends (diamonds 
are
>a girls best ...) so that you can recognise me Snoopy.
> 

Or alternatively just hang your BHP share certificate around your neck 
Marilyn.   BHP do diamonds these days you know ;-).

SNOOPY


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