Morning Mumble: What's going on at Glencore's McArthur River Mine? & Directors buys...

Good Morning, 

News for Glencore’s McArthur River mine (MRM) - Doubt over McArthur River mine as deadline reached (Northern Territories News) & Glencore mine threatened with closure for not increasing funding for clean-up (ABC). The pollution story is well documented on Google if you’re so inclined.

Glencore allegedly need to find circa AU$550M* - will the Northern Territories close the mine or suspend production? After such a long-standing debacle it's unlikely but all the same, not the most convenient of times. 

It’s a good job its Friday, as we need to crack out the champagne. William Macaulay described as a shrewd investor (or similar) I think by Ivan, has purchased 1,700,000 Shares at a price of 90.91p (GBP 0.91) per Share. Fear not, the market should take this as a positive indicator, buy in their droves and order the super yachts. Or should they?

As a reminder EMC William Macaulay - "What this signifies in respect of GLEN's key market and likely performance is another matter (EMC).” Just William! What the heck, it’s rude not to at least back William for being so shrewd. Selling near 70M shares but showing some support with 1.7M, now that is shrewd, especially at a third of the price.

Excuse the sarcasm, but whilst Ivan et al are doing their PR steam-roller roadshow, perhaps William can pop along to Barclays and inform them what prompted the decision to sell?

With some manipulation in the copper markets, one wonders what the risk downside is. Here’s hoping for the producers that they don’t create a perfect storm like early this year and get caught in a quiet market. Or is the main theme of this post offloading copper…

Finally, Glencoregives trading details as share price falls (FT) that implies that about two-thirds, or $12bn, related to oil and had a trading cycle of only eight days. What are Glencore’s margins and returns? The deleveraging and reduced working capital adjustments will hit the bottom line exponentially. Who cares about % of shareholder funds? The market belatedly…What are the returns currently 2%?

Atb Fraser

*Note from ABC from the link: We think at a minimum $550 million. This is what we've heard the company has been asked for. That's not on the public record because the Department of Mines and Energy does not have legislation requiring that companies identify how much public liability they have.