BEL ==> The New Year's Winner

[evilarya]

The issue isnt the delay but rather whats going to happen with Belledune. It's not out of the scope of possibility that the residents win their appeal and belledune gets shut down, if that happens then this stock is going to be trash for a while considering all the money that went into the plant already.

[moemaynard]

[quote="evilarya"]The issue isnt the delay but rather whats going to happen with Belledune.......quote]


I respectfully beg to differ. The issue today is this "delay". It has to make you wonder what is going on at these sites and also about why aren't they bringing in soil from other contracts. The biggest thing is that Bennett's management is at an all time low right now with regard to respect.

R E S P E C T and legitimacy is a serious matter.

Belledune is going to come on line, I don't doubt that.

[ytown12]

More Info on BEL..

Here is some info on Bel from a Hedge Fund manager that writes for realmoney.com. He follows the stock and was long the stock until a few weeks ago :

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"Around $12 where it is trading now is it a fair price for one incinerator operating somewhere near full capacity ? a goal they may yet achieve, but it's hard to believe they could do it consistently given today's announcement."

"One potential problem I see is that management is still projecting that their second incinerator will get its operating permit by Q3 of this year. That's no slam dunk and could lead to yet another downside surprise. They're dealing with a local zoning challenge that does not appear to be going away easy and although they may prevail, and they could prevail at any time, the timing is uncertain and it's definitely a mess."

"Now with all that said, I'm likely to watch the situation a little closer. If they get the first incinerator up and running again, build up a new backlog of dirt and the cloud over the second incinerator begins to clear, then the stock has plenty of upside."

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So some short term negatives but could be a long-term buying opp in the near future...

ytown12

[mltlawn]

Bel

I think it will take longer than 6 weeks

[mrmarket]

The stock is pretty cheap for a one plant operation. I'm happy to sit on it.

[Michaelk005]

I picked up some shares at $12.04

[evilarya]

I agree somewhat with what you're saying Moe and also disagree. With the announcement of the large budget set aside just for cleaning up the environment in Canada wouldn't it be logical to assume that in the very near future a good chunk of that money could head toward BEL or do you think that even that is iffy. I see it going two ways, BEL approaches the $7.69 52 week low and they are unable to sustain their inventory and the stock hovers in the single digits for quite some time, and then Belledune comes online and it should have a decent jump. Now the combination of both plants in operation shouldnt their EPS essentially double and the stock price as well? Anyways im going to wait to see if the stock rises in the coming weeks and if it doesnt Im going to sell and come back once I see a rising trend, what do you guys think.

[mrmarket]

Don't look now, but BEL is up over 25% this year, vs. S&P 500 2.6%

[scifos]

Too bad you bought in Jan 04 instead of Jan 2005.

[jiesen]

If anyone still cares about BEL, here's a copy of my notes from the CC today. Much of it is left out, and there are more than a few errors in the transcription. But if anyone wants listen to it with these notes on-hand, and maybe correct my mistakes or make it a bit more complete... I didn't take the necessary time to make it pretty at all.

Anyway, it sounds to me that if they get even half of the contracts signed over the next 6 months that they are projecting, BEL should be well on its way back to profitability. I wouldn't count them out at all. Also, insurance may cover much of the legal cost they're currently incurring.




12000 tons by 2004? Down by 8000?? Lost some due to permit delays.

12000 in stock or in transit



Sweeny: Elevated Dioxins/Furans

Bennett: Disputes results- 3rd party experts support company;s position

Feb 9, Ministry officials asked for plan to address issues while remaining viable.



ISO 14001 in 2004. At Belledune begin compliance testing- get operating permit in 3rd qrtr.



Danny Faun taking over VP of Operations, writing tech reports for tarponds. Develop MRR at cornwall- PCB debris. Geenral MRR manager- developing H2 gasification process, developing new markets for technology… etc.



Wendy Ford is corp controller



Andy: (CFO) Al said that we lost $8.3M. Saglak counted for 4.2M of loss. Additional charge of 0.5M depreciation.



4th Qrtr severance for Vancouver office 0.8M, legal costs 1.3M Forex=1.1M loss. Dec qrtr 2003 income was 6.6M on 22M sales.

18M loss total in 04. rev 24.3M



Saglak- 1st time primary contractor. LT contract method, requires projections on qrtrly basis.



New sales:

Esp in US market.

Work in progress…

Got new contracts for 6000

PO for +- 30000 for 2005 (10000 is new client business)

Wants to process 30000 tons this year.

Bids on 1.2M tons. ½ is from US. Focused development effort.



Trying to improve win rates for contracts.

Destroying pesticides/dioxins is niche market



Creosote project 100,000 tons? Manville wants to develop for residential use, needs higher removal of soil. May have update in Q2.



Management is improving across the board, in sales, management, customer relationships.



Sounds pretty optimistic about returning to profitability.







Q&A

What were Q4 costs for Saglak?



Operating permits in Quebec?

Met with ministry, developing a plan. Ministry is not issuing any type of order. Were expecting results in Nov 1st.



New Brusnwick, looking for permit in September now?

Thought it’d be in Q3, but it took time to finish building, and to receive approvals by govt. But now we’re ready to get started, takes ~100 days to get agreement.





Jason Stankowski

1st Question: Pipeline- 60,000 tons, is that goal for this year? No, right now we have it in the pipeline, but not confident yet about it.



Is the 600,000 tons in Canada- besides Sidney Tar Ponds? Yes, all of it is! Processing will probably be in 2007



2-3 reasonable size jobs 50k-60k each. 40-50 other jobs (smaller size)



6 months will give indications of many of the 1.2M tons up for bid.





Mentioned large jobs of 300-400k tons.





What is quarterly number of tons needed to break even?

BE tonnage is 10-12k tons/qtr 60k/year is cash break even with capex included.



Profitability- difficult to say with litigation questions.

Litigation expense is tough to track- there are contingencies, but will be ongoing for at least a few quarters.

4.4M in capex is for finishing Belledune, and for facility soil cooling in Quebec.

3M forward capex.



John Chu



Pipeline: US bids are large or small? All small jobs. 1000 tons could be too small in US? Bennett is good for niche small jobs, ones that nobody else can treat. They’ll treat anything at a profitable price. Bidding is competitive. 2003 margins will not be repeated. 500/ton Canadian$. Further in US, the transportation costs are higher, and margins are lower. They want market share, so working in Alabama at lower margin than usual, just to show that they can do it. More dirt is on the way.



6000 now, 5000 more coming.



Why open plant now? Certain jobs have to be finished by March to get paid. Continuous flow through 2nd quarter. Want to get employees back to work soon, to avoid attrition.



Contracts other than Saglak being pursued.



Several projects due-line projects?

57 projects worth 175M (dollars?) -- some are Bennett type, some not.



In past, exchange rate has affected earnings. Is bidding process changing to neutralize risk? Only thing they can do is hedge cash. Can pursue hedging strategies to lock in exchange rate…



Kent Green:



Fixed price contract- are you going to do them? Saglak was overall profitable. Wont shy away from the projects, but will do them differently.



Will you not do % completeion, or did you estimate the % wrong? We had some expectations of revenue that was to come in, didn’t materialize.

It wasn’t that the govt changed the parameters? It was company problem? Yeah.



Delay in startup of Quebec plant? Expecting 12000 tons storage… but? We processed 9000 tons, expected 4400 tons but that slipped to next quarter. Got 5000 ton order, but lost it at last minute to competitor, due to permitting issues. US govt(?) took more than the usual 3-6 weeks, went past customer deadline. Trying to collapse lead-time to 0, so we can get the dirt over the border without a problem in the future. Shouldn’t happen again.



When is Belledune due to come online? Starting compliance testing, submitting data, hoping for permit in Q2-3. May start up at end of year, but won’t do it until there is sufficient pipeline- at least 80% rate. 175k-200k $/qrtr burning money for idle plant.



What’s a DEW line project? Early warning- the old radar?

Several projects- met with president of DCC. 20 projects along the DEW line. 50k tons is bid on the DEW line within 60k(600?k) tons.

Expect some soil in July? Where is it? Are they rebidding the 100k tonnage, is it ours? EPA said 25000 tons is thermal. 25k will be dug in July in Creosote. One edge of shopping mall. We still are due the 25k.



Legal fees are fairly high for litigation. Insurance policy has 250k deductible. They do have a claim into the Insuance company, but they haven’t heard yet what’ll be covered. Some should be recovered, but so far none is being recovered. They have 90 days, which is coming soon, to tell them what’s covered.



14.3M is net? Gross is 19M? Accts receivable is 14M Gross is 19M difference is reserves. 4.9M claim includes 1.6M govt money holdback from DC, which should get recovered. How much is 30 day / over 30 day money? 10M is related to defense contract Canada. Of 6M remaining 1.6 is holdbacks, rest are receivable. Most collected in 2005 already.



LT Debt is increasing…? Theres a note, its related to severance- 18mo- longer. Only encumberance is letters of credit for 1.3M outstanding, which is cash-collateralized.

[mxa]

Another perspective on BEL

Hey from a cheap bastard's standpoint Big Elephant Lickers [BEL] is trading below book. Unless they are really stupid - I mean unbelievably stupid with their assets, this is a good buy.

[mrmarket]

Clean that dirt! Clean that dirt!

At $2.80/share, we are definitely on the right track!


================================================== ========

Bennett Announces Second Quarter Results
Wednesday July 27, 8:24 pm ET


OAKVILLE, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 27, 2005--Bennett Environmental Inc. (TSX:BEV - News; AMEX:BEL - News) -
- Revenue increases to $6.2 million

- 8,800 tonnes processed/ lower per tonne costs

- Net loss cut to $1.4 million

- New business orders total 8,000 tonnes

Bennett Environmental today announced financial and operating results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2005.

The following table summarizes financial data for the six most recently completed quarters, expressed in Canadian dollars (millions), except per share data:

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2005 2004
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Q2 Q1 Q4 Q3 Q2 Q1
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Net Sales 6.2 3.9 4.5 8.0 3.9 8.9
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Net Income/(Loss) (1.4) (3.6) (8.3) (7. (2.2) (0.3)
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Earnings Per Share
- Basic (0.07) (0.17) (0.45) (0.43) (0.12) (0.02)
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Earnings Per Share
- Diluted (0.07) (0.17) (0.45) (0.43) (0.12) (0.02)
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Sales for the quarter were $6.2 million compared to $3.9 million a year earlier. Approximately 8,800 tonnes of soil were processed at the Company's Quebec facility (2004: 4,000 tonnes) and approximately 207,000 kilograms was processed at the Cornwall facility (2004: 200,000 kilograms). Bennett also sent approximately 1,300 tonnes of non-hazardous material to non-Company owned landfill sites. Sales for the Quebec facility were approximately $5.1million and sales for the Cornwall facility were approximately $0.9 million. Sales from land- filling non-hazardous material were $0.2 million.

[billyjoe]

BEL is up 25% in the past 2 weeks. I've got enough cheap shares to make it interesting. If Mr. Market pulls this one out imagine the posts on this and other sites. That's entertainment!
I know there's 32 other companies in pollution control , but when the "dirty" dirt starts coming in how many are directly in competion with BEL and have the facilities in place?


billyjoe

[billyjoe]

BEL got me again. Stopped out at 3. Someone will make money on this stock, but it won't be me.


billyjoe

[jiesen]

sorry to hear that, billyjoe. someone must have seen your stop sitting there, because it looks like you were robbed!