The path to tech success was a difficult one for James H. Clark.
A high school drop-out, Clark was the product of a difficult childhood, eventually joining the navy and gaining just enough credits to enroll in college, where he studied electronics, a subject that intrigued him during his time in the service.
Clark's big break in tech was the introduction of Netscape, which he designed with partner Marc Andreessen. A hugely successful product, Netscape was the first major web browser, claiming more than 80 percent of the browser market until 1998. Clark also co-founded popular medical (and self-diagnosis) website WebMD, as well as Silicon Graphics, a popular, high-end special effects and 3D imaging graphics company. While certainly a product of his own tenacity, Clark has also seen a fair bit of luck, too, having invested in wildly successful enterprises including Apple, Facebook and Twitter.
Having earned a masters in Physics, a Ph.D. in computer science, and working as a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford, Clark has spent much of his fortune giving to a number of universities. This includes contributions to New Orleans University for a physics program, Tulane University for an engineering scholarship, and Stanford University, to which Clark pledged $150 million for the James H. Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering.
It's worth noting that despite Clark's interest in higher education, he's had some issues with both of his former stomping grounds New Orleans University and Tulane Unversity, where bureaucratic issues kept the money Clark donated from being used exactly to his liking. This doesn't seem to diminshed his interest in philanthropy for higher education, however, as he recently donated $10 million to Stanford University for general use.
Clark's passion for sailing and his time in the Navy have resulted in thousands in giving to marine organizations such as Sail Newport, Sail for the Sea, and Oliver Hazard Perry, which gives young kids the opportunity to experience what goes into life at sea. Clark's been involved in funding similar marine-related nonprofits through the James H. Clark Charitable Foundation, including the World Wide Fund for Nature, Wildlife Australia, the Oceanic Preservation Society, and the Jean Michel Cousteau Institute—named after the great French oceanographic explorer and environmentalist.
Clark's approach to giving is unique, and it will be interesting to see where future passions take him and what he decides to support next.


Dr.Lucian Warner was a physician in the late 19th century. He ended up giving up his practice to lecture people about women's health issues, specifically the corset. He gave lectures on the harmful effects of the steel boned corset. But his lectures gave no effect. So he decided to design a corset in 1873 that gave the "perfect" shape and had the flexibility to prevent injuries by allowing more movement. Then in 1974 Dr.Warner and his brother Dr. Ira De Ver quit their medical jobs and founded the Warner Brother's Corset Company. The corsets they produced were called Dr.Warners Coraline Health Corsets. The corsets were made of to pieces of Coraline and were laced or clasped together. They also added shoulder straps for support.
The product was so innovative and prevalent that they had to relocate from New York to Bridgeport CT. In this location they had about 1,200 people working and they produced about 6,000 corsets a day. This all made the brothers millionaires and they retired in 1894. The company was now in the hands of Dr.Ira De Vers son D.H.Warner. Warner Brother's company was then turned into a corporation from a partnership.


The Fergana valley is the easternmost part of Uzbekistan. It is incredibly rich and fertile farmland and has the highest proportion of ethnic Uzbeks in the country. As we travelled around Uzbekistan we met lots of friendly people and it seemed that, disproportionately, when we asked them where they were from they mentioned one of the cities in the Fergana valley. It is perhaps unsurprising then that here we were overwhelmed by meeting some the most friendly, generous and hospitable people in Uzbekistan – a country that overall we've found to be incredibly welcoming!
To get to Fergana from Nukus in the far west of the country where our trip to the Aral Sea ended, we needed to go via Tashkent. It's possible to fly, but we had time and a hankering for the Russian trains that we had experienced over a year earlier near the beginning of this trip so we bought tickets for the overnight train to the capital and were excited to find out that it originated in Saint Petersburg!
The railways were built during Soviet times and much of the rolling stock dates from that period so it was very similar to how we remembered except that this time the carriage seemed to be full of Uzbeks who'd been shopping in Russia. The guy across the way from us was sharing his bunk with two huge TV sets, and one couple had boxes and boxes of stuff, far more than they could carry.
Sharing a bunk with two brand new TVs – one propped in front of the window and one taped to the bunk above!
After an overnight stay in Tashkent, we then had to navigate the journey to Fergana which turned out to be a bit of a marathon. First we had to get a mashrutka, or minibus, from Chorsu Bazaar, near our guesthouse, to Kuyluk Bazaar, 20km outside the city, where the shared taxis to the eastern cities congregate. Then we had to find the shared taxis to Fergana (harder than we'd expected), negotiate a price for the trip and wait in a swelteringly hot car while the driver rustled up passengers for the other seats (that's the shared bit; buses are not permitted on the mountain roads so regular cars are used to move people back and forth).
Eventually we set off, Andrew quickly made friends with the guy sitting next to him, chatting in a combination of broken Russian, broken English, sign language and diagrams. There were numerous stops; we were given a yoghurt drink to try, bought bread from what appeared to be a bread and melon market beside the highway in the middle of nowhere, and met a group of Spanish construction workers at a truck stop ruing the food they had to put up with while working on a new road in the mountains. At the final stop before we reached Fergana city, the driver took us through his home town of Oltiarik where we met his grape farmer friend who cut three massive bunches of grapes straight from the vines and presented them to us. Wow, what a journey!
We arrived in Fergana quite late in the afternoon and worn out from all the travelling so we decided to take it easy on the following day. We had a lie-in, ate some of our mountain of grapes for breakfast and then set off to the bazaar to have a look around. It was an interesting place, stuffed with tons of fresh produce as you would expect for a farming area in September.
Just as we were trying to work out where to eat lunch, we were approached by a local man. His name was Habib and, during the usual chit-chat, we found out that he learnt his excellent English while working in London for a while before returning home to open a pharmacy and a cafe. He found out that we wanted to try the local plov as we'd been told that Fergana's version of the national dish was especially good and he set off with us in tow eager that we should only try the best. We were a bit worried that we were messing up his plans for the day but by now we've learnt that in these situations we just have to submit. After trying several places and asking advice from a number of locals he settled on a particular restaurant before joining us and paying for our meal! After eating, we assured him that we could manage to make a few purchases in the market without help, and he left us with his phone number and directions to his cafe in case we needed anything.
The next morning, we took the bus to the nearby town of Margilon which is the centre of silk production in Uzbekistan, the 3rd largest silk producer in the world. The Lonely Planet informed us that the Kumtepa Bazaar which runs only on Sundays and Thursdays was a good place to get a local vibe and see the silk being sold by the metre. I'm not sure quite what we expected but it certainly wasn't the massive hive of activity selling everything from leather boots to car tyres to melons that we found.
Before we ventured into the market proper we wandered along the roadside. Firstly because as the minivan had passed we'd seen mountains of melons for sale from the boots of cars and we wanted a closer look, and second because we'd spotted some seriously heavily loaded cars and thought we might find a good vantage point to take some photographs. Most of the cars in Uzbekistan are either small Daewoo Matiz or a Chevrolet saloon model called Nexia, but whenever we've seen a car with a heavy load it has always been an old Soviet model, usually a Lada. Here was no exception with massive loads of furniture balanced precariously atop and in the boot.
Finally we entered the central market area. I don't think too many tourists get out this way because, like the markets that we visited in Bangladesh, people were extremely curious, chatty and welcoming. Like Bangladesh, Uzbekistan is a Muslim country and, in the traditional Muslim culture, it's not unusual for men to direct all questions to Andrew, want their photo with him and not even shake my hand; all done with extreme respect and courtesy, and occasionally advantageous as while I'm being ignored I can be taking photos of interesting stuff, but still it's a bit tiresome after a while. In Margilon there were at least as many women vendors as men and probably more women customers and so I got a lot of interest and interaction too.
Julie sharing a joke with the ladies at the entrance to the bazaar. They were selling the traditional hats called Tubeteika or Duppi so of course I had to try one too!
There was a big area behind the main market selling the furniture that we'd seen loaded onto cars at the front. Inside we found a carpet section to complete the home decoration.
Having reached the farthest end of the bazaar, we spotted a kebab stand and took a seat set back out of the way for a bite of lunch when a man saw us, stepped into the cafe, smiled and said 'Samarkand', remarkably he was one of the friendly local tourists we'd met at Shah-i-Zinda in Samarkand. Excitedly he pulled up a photo of him and his friend with Andrew on his phone while I found the corresponding shot on my camera! Crazy that we could come halfway across the country and meet again by chance. We took another photo to prove the coincidence and turned down his kind offers to take us to his house for food.
We agreed that Kumtepa Bazaar was one of the friendliest and most interesting markets we've ever been to, and well worth the long trip from Tashkent.
This entry was posted in Places and tagged Fergana, Margilon, Market, Uzbekistan on October 14, 2014 by Julie.
As well as being well worth a visit for the excellent Savitsky Museum, Nukus is the jumping off point for tours to what remains of the southern Aral Sea. We booked through the Jipek Joli Hotel and they were able to match us up with another couple of travellers to share the cost of the car and driver.
The first stop on the tour was just 13km west of Nukus at the Mizdahkan Necropolis which has been used as a burial ground since the 2nd century BCE when the area was the site of a large city. The city was destroyed by Chinggis Khan in the 13th century but burials have continued to the present day. We'd already visited with Jo and seen many of the older and more impressive tombs on the hill top so this time we struck off in a different direction and were surprised to discover some graves marked with Orthodox crosses amongst the much more common Muslim crescent moons.
On our first visit we were given some information by the site's caretaker delivered in a very inventive display of charades once he realised we don't speak Russian. His miming of a camel definitely sticks out, but in reality we probably got a lot of the words without necessarily understanding the complexities of the history he was explaining.
An hour or so after getting back into the car we stopped for lunch and met up with the passengers of the other car doing the tour on that day – three Swedish men who do a trip each year with the theme of disasters (last year they visited Chernobyl!), and their local guide. Not long after lunch the surfaced road turned into dirt track, reminding us of the tours we did into the Mongolian countryside.
For the rest of the afternoon we drove over the Ustyurt Plateau, the raised landform which divides the basins of the Caspian and Aral Seas. This was itself once under an ocean and we found shells amongst the strange scrubby desert plants.
Just off the Ustyurt Plateau lies Lake Sudochie and beside it an abandoned fishing village. The guide told us that this lake was once part of the Aral Sea and, although it had also dried up in the past, it has been artificially recreated by feeding it with a canal from the Amudarya River. It is home to a surprising number of birds, though we couldn't get a good look at them as we didn't have any binoculars with us.
The Aral Sea was fed by two rivers, the Amudarya in the south and the Syrdarya in the north. In the middle of the 20th century, the Soviet Union decided that the Central Asian area would produce all of the cotton required for the whole of the USSR. As cotton is a very thirsty crop, and the Central Asian deserts and plains are not naturally a particularly wet place, hundreds of kilometres of irrigation channels were constructed to water the plants from the two rivers. Due to evaporation and leakage, these canals were extremely inefficient and up to 75% of the diverted water was being lost. Directly because of this, the Aral Sea, which was once the 4th largest saline lake in the world started to shrink. We arrived at the western shore of the remaining lake just as the sun was starting to go down.
As a testament to how fast the lake is shrinking, our guide told us that just two years ago it wasn't possible to see the other side of the lake, now we could see the yellow line of the shore along the horizon. Those willing to brave the cold, including Andrew, went for a dip in the salty water. As the water's volume shrinks, the salt becomes more concentrated and currently the Aral Sea has about 150g salt per litre compared to 40g in the Pacific Ocean. This high level of salinity gives you extra buoyancy and it is possible to float with your arms and legs sticking right out of the water.
That night we slept in tents a little way from the lake's shore. Our driver cooked us a dinner of plov over a campfire while we marvelled at the pitch black sky and the huge number of stars.
After a breakfast of bread, cheese and salami we set off in the cars, at first driving over the Ustyurt Plateau again, where we stopped to see some old gravestones from Kazakh tribes, before descending onto what was once the seabed and driving towards Moynoq.
50 years ago, Moynoq was a thriving fishing town producing 20 million cans of fish per year. Nowadays, it is over 150km from the edge of the Aral Sea. It's all very well seeing pictures and hearing stories of the lake's demise but I didn't really understand it until we'd driven for an entire morning from the edge of the lake to a town which used to be on the lakeside.
The most stark reminder of the Aral Sea at Moynoq is a ships' graveyard. While most of the former fishing fleet has been dismantled for scrap, a few boats have been left to rust in the desert as a reminder of the former industry. To see the rusting ships and look into the distance across miles and miles of desert was incredibly poignant.
Unfortunately, the effects of this man-made disaster are even more serious than the loss of livelihood for the area. Climactically, the sea used to have a moderating effect meaning that summers are now much hotter and winters much colder. Winds whip up dust storms containing a mixture of salt and sand and depositing them in the atmosphere resulting in accelerated glacier melt on nearby mountains, and serious health impacts for local residents, including respiratory diseases.
In Kazakhstan, where the northern part of the Aral Sea is situated, work has been done to reverse the sea's shrinkage with significant success and positive impacts to both local people and the environment. Unfortunately, the Uzbekistan government seems more interested in extracting gas from the seabed than seeing it again covered in water and sadly it is likely that it won't be many years until nothing more is left of the southern Aral Sea.
Much of the information I have used about the Aral Sea's history comes from this excellent article. I highly recommend a read if you're interested in an in-depth analysis of the impact (thanks to Jo for sharing the link with us).
This entry was posted in Places and tagged Aral Sea, Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan on October 12, 2014 by Julie.


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You are at:Home»News»Veterinary News»European E. Coli Outbreak Subject of AVMA Convention Program
European E. Coli Outbreak Subject of AVMA Convention Program
By Lea-Ann Germinder on July 15, 2011 Veterinary News
Schaumburg, Illinois— The fact that no U.S. Department of Defense personnel based in Europe became ill during the 2011 outbreak of E. coli O104 is due in part to a concerted effort by the U.S. Army's Public Health Command Region-Europe.
More than 4,000 people became ill, and about 50 people died during the outbreak. U.S. personnel stationed in Europe, however, escaped unscathed. And some of the reasons why are the subject of a program titled, ""Multidisciplinary Response to the Escherichia coli O104 Outbreak in Europe,"" that will be held Saturday, July 16, from 9-9:50 a.m. in Room 121-122 at the American Veterinary Medical Association's Annual Convention at America's Center in St. Louis, Mo.
Led by Michael Cooper, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Public Health Service, and Charles C. Dodd, program manager for Veterinary Services for the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps, the program will explore how the Public Health Command Region-Europe immediately established a multidisciplinary team to monitor and prevent E. coli O104 exposure to the European Department of Defense population. The team included veterinarians, physicians, epidemiologists, laboratory diagnosticians, food safety specialists, public affairs officers and environmental health officers.
Timely and accurate risk assessment, management and communication were vital in protecting the European Department of Defense population during the outbreak, according to Cooper and Dodd. No cases of E. coli O104 were reported in European Department of Defense personnel as of July 8, 2011.
For more information, contact David Kirkpatrick, media relations manager-outreach, at 847-285-6782 (office), 847-409-0519 (cell).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


07:48 The share price is sitting at an all time low. Anyone who is holding with a much higher average should be thinking of buying more to bring there average down.
18:30 Value Hound. You are a brave man/woman to buy this at 32p but good luck!
14:18 We will soon see once final results are out. I'm in until results good or bad.Good luck.
14:12 How do you know the NAV is a correct figure? My primary reason for buying it at 70p a share was because the P/B was 0.83 at the time and I thought that was cheap for a company with good growth prospects. If those figures are wrong then the shares are not cheap.
13:36 Taken 40,000@26.00p Net asset value is over 1.00 pound a share.
12:49 This should have been suspended last week, leaving it on the market has just meant the uncertainty has crucified it.
23:22 The last time this sock went up was 2006 my friend. It's 2019. So I will revise my "it's always been a dog" to "this has been a dog for 13 years" if you prefer.
21:22 Banking covenants being smashed to pieces doesn't help either.
18:13 "Accounting errors" look to be more serious than the RNS suggested!
12:58 Sliding down down down!
13:15 I think the lesson from this stock is never to buy any individual stocks. There is no way that you can ever be assured that there is no fraud occurring in the company. I've suffered big losses in the recent past from believing the false trading statements of various CEOs, but in the UK especially, there are very weak punishments for fraud. Directors usually buy shares to deceive investors into following them, because their salaries are much higher than the amount they put into the shares. Even Mike Ashley and the North Atlantic Smaller companies Trust have been swindled by GOAL, so there is no advantage to being a professional investor. Over the long-term, no investment can beat the safety or return of being a buy-to-let landlord I even had my fund managers in the City Financial Absolute Equity Fund stealing from the till.
09:08 Yet another own goal again - So post 530 repeated and reinforced - Starting to smell like a dead duck!! Teach me again to take all ANALYST'S pronouncements - rose tinted glasses etc with a VERY LARGE SACK OF SALT !!!!!
19:05 I never realised it'd be so damn hard to make a bob or two out of the two favourite pastimes of the English, beer and football. It's probably something to do with Brexit.


I started off the new year opening up the original Mobile Suit Gundam, but along with that famous "beginning" I was thinking of how I'd acquired a number of sequels to series as a matter of course only for gulfs of time to wind up opening after my viewings of the originals; it seemed time to focus a little more on those follow-ups. Having heard positive comments about the animation in Jubei-chan 2 and with pleasant memories of the first "sword fighting with a 'magical girl' twist" series, I got around to the sequel. As I started into it, though, I did find myself thinking I couldn't quite remember the minor recurring characters from the original after all, and was also a little struck by how the humour seemed to get assigned to specific comedy relief characters fairly early on as the main characters got increasingly serious and even "brooding." At the same time, though, I could still agree the animation was well-done.
Perhaps still a little troubled at the thought of innocent interest in new series being streamed online running smack into swiftly souring opinions from everyone else, I started off the year thinking there were still plenty of "back-catalog" titles available on the site Crunchyroll. In the midst of contemplating series "everyone else seemed to like," though, I noticed all of the Gundam titles get pulled from it, and my attention fixed on another series that had been released over here by Bandai Entertainment, one that some people on the message board have long seemed fond of. I started off Hayate the Combat Butler, a tale of an unfortunate fellow whose bad luck turns at last when he starts working for a spoiled rich girl, with the thought of it being a "big-cast comedy," if with the more modern touch of the cast seeming to tilt very much towards cute girls (although, to my own eyes, their character designs are sort of more just adequate that way). I suppose my initial pleasant surprise was to contrast the sense the characters might have seemed a somehow familiar collection of "jerks and idiots" with the strong impression of them being quite likable. At the same time, though, I was sort of conscious the series also seemed one of those with no real end point in sight, which did leave me wondering at what point it would seem "acceptable" to get to those other series I'd also been thinking of.
There do continue to be anime titles I only begin to pay real attention to with the announcement they've been licensed over here, and with some of those titles I still can't say much more about why I'm interested in them than that other, more knowledgable people are also showing great interest. That seemed to be the case with The Garden of Sinners, which I gathered to be a series of usually short movies with a "supernatural investigation and combat" story. However, that first annoucement was in fact for a sort of more formalized importing arrangement of a limited edition Blu-Ray set at a steep price. Before I could sort through "paying so much for something I still didn't know very much about," the people who had learned things about it beforehand had bought up all the copies, and I was left to fume a bit about my separation from a hypothetical sort of "ultra-collector mentality." Eventually, though, a not quite as expensive and not quite as limited box set of DVDs was announced, and now I was ready to pay for something other people obviously valued quite a lot. From the start, I did have the distinct feeling there was something almost "old-fashioned" about the dark, brooding nature of the movies and their sullen, threatening female protagonist Shiki, something reminiscent of the OVAs and movies that were made a big deal over here once upon a time but carried off all the same with modern polish. At the same time, I was able to think back to a few other recent examples of "throwback works" and think that in this case it was nice to discover that feeling on my own instead of potentially having been hard-sold on it beforehand in a fashion putting down all recent anime. I sorted through the initially out-of-order instalments, but by the time it was all over there was a thought or two of "style over substance" in my mind; all the same, I didn't regret the experience.
For all my earlier concern, with the series I watched streaming as they aired I was perhaps getting over that troubling feeling alluded to that genres I was interested in just weren't being handled competently to begin with in the eyes of other fans. Space Brothers kept chugging along, and seems to be pushing beyond a mere "year-long" run to keep adapting the manga it's based on, although one "plot arc" involving a crisis on the moon did leave me wondering if having to invent problems in space to "keep things interesting," as some complain real world space travel isn't being sufficiently played up, can begin to stretch credulity for others. The at first cryptic extrapolations of From the New World (which made me think a bit of how a thread of "anime as foreign" has woven through the fandom over here for a long time, provoking different reactions) became a bit more familiar, and the different plot challenges came together in the end. At the same time, I did grapple a bit with how the show's female protagonist Saki seemed at times to be a "viewpoint character" to whom things were being explained for our benefit, only for some to react to this as seeing her "letting the male characters lead her around"; her not invincibly overcoming everything might in the end have made me draw back not from the show but from certain reactions to it. Perhaps, though, this might tie into a general sense of how there were no easy answers or interpretations for our benefit when it was all over, something that did add to the impact for me. As for a series I also found interesting but in a different way, hearing Vividred Operation had connections to Strike Witches got my attention, having liked that previous series more than I'd feared I'd react to it; I decided to leave Strike Witches 2 for a little later. Vividred Operation seemed at first glance to be a "magical girls" show with a distinctly science-fictional feel to the high-tech drum majorette uniforms, although the antagonist did seem more "magical" to begin with. The "fanservice," although only to be expected, didn't have quite the opaquely terrifying yet fascinating nature of Strike Witches' "War on Pants," although the characters seeming that little bit younger did provoke the feeling it was necessary to rush to the declaration of it seeming that much creepier at first, and I might have just let the "pair them off" innuendo others were fixating on wash over me. It didn't overwhelm the series in the end, though.
Managing to finish watching Mobile Suit Gundam and Jubei-chan 2 both around the same time meant I could open up two different series at once, both of them having their own peculiar reminisces of Gundam. Transformers Victory, the third of the Japanese-only Transformers series released at last over here, was promised to get back more to what people over here considered Transformers to be. However, having found the genre-blurring of Transformers Masterforce sort of interesting myself, I did find myself wondering at first if I was quite as ready to get back to robots being robots and humans tagging along more or less as mascots. As well, all of the characters (save for first one and then one four-member team of "Micromasters") were based on toys not sold over here, and that had a somehow distancing effect on me as well even if it meant there wasn't quite as much difficulty to the subtitles giving the North American names for the toys but the Japanese dialogue having different names (except for, once more, the Micromasters, who befitting their small size had "kids's voices"). Within a few episodes, though, I did seem to be getting along better with the simple attractions of the series. I've seen My Otome, along with its predecessor My-HiME, called a Gundam series in disguise being by the same animation studio and all (even if some of those who make the comparison use it as a chance to condemn the familiar targets among the larger franchise). I had wondered a bit beforehand about divergent opinions of the follow-up, and in the first episodes I could see how people could come to snap condemnations of it with its protagonist Arika (glimpsed only at the very end of the first series, I came to realise) seeming to start off with a familiar blend of simple-minded enthusiasm and ability granted by authorial fiat. My opinion did seem to keep improving, though, seeing the familiar character designs returning in a new "space fantasy" sort of setting and wondering if it could be seen as popular characters from the original getting second chances. (It also seemed encouraging I could remember so much of the original after some slight difficulties that way with Jubei-chan 2.) This time around, though, I am conscious I'm reporting on this series with some episodes left to go and an escalation from the initial easy-going terms in progress.
Crunchyroll managed to pick up one series in the midst of the past three months, a series I'd already heard about and become interested in. AKB0048 seems a member of a recent mini-genre of "idol group" series, the difference in this case being the group is set in an interstellar future and travels around giving guerrilla concerts on worlds with "entertainment bans," handling their own security by fighting off mechanized attackers in mid-song. Along with Vividred Operation, I was tempted to approve in general of absurd concepts carried off with verve, and keeping in mind that Shoji Kawamori was the series director, I saw a pleasant resemblance to Macross Frontier. As much as I approved in general terms of the series being seen through the eyes of young candidates to join the group, though, I suppose I could wonder if the whole "can I qualify, and who will I replace?" question was quite as interesting as the guerrilla concert angle. As for older series, I took special note of the first episodes of the antique "super robot" series Voltes V, and as things continued I did notice the slight increase in complexity of characterization I'd heard others mention before.
I managed to fit a few movies into my viewings. It was pleasant to be able to see the Madoka Magica movies on the big screen at a very convenient location to get to, but just perhaps I left them thinking it was also good I now didn't feel compelled to buy some hypothetical video release of movies not that different from the original series. (Of course, there's a third movie said to be arriving...) In a more conventional fashion, I watched a DVD of a movie I'd decided it was time to get around to at last after watching the original Lupin the Third series. The supplemental material for it kept mentioning The Castle of Cagliostro as the culmination of sorts of the work Hayao Miyazaki had done on Lupin; I could see that, but could also see anticipations of sorts of some of the elements of his films in the decade to follow. For all of that looking back and forward, though, the movie did stand well on its own just as had been promised, even if "standing on its own" might also describe its cheerfully chivalrous take on the master thief Lupin, one that did leave me anticipating other movies and series being released.


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Home Crime Mystery Harvey Horne and Xavier Rodriguez Murders: Where is Wayne Doty Now?
Crime Mystery
Harvey Horne and Xavier Rodriguez Murders: Where is Wayne Doty Now?
Harvey Horne and Xavier Rodriguez Murders: Where is Wayne Doty Now? – Netflix's true crime hit "I Am a Killer" is back for Season 3 with six rather than ten episodes, but it keeps the same format: people who have confessed, been found guilty of murder, and are either on Death Row or serving time in a maximum security prison stand in front of the camera and tell their story while those on the outside, such as family members, the families of their victims, law enforcement, and other observers, fill in the background of their crimes. Executive producers Danny Tipping and Ned Parker of "I Am a Killer" combined ten instances from the series into a book earlier this year.
At the time of the incident, Florida State Prison inmate Wayne C. Doty admitted to killing fellow prisoner Xavier Rodriguez and later entered a guilty plea. If you want to know more about his story, keep reading below.
Recommended: Tracey Tetso Murder: Where is Dennis Tetso Today?
How Did Harvey Horne and Xavier Rodriguez Die?
Wayne Charles Doty, who was born on April 12, 1973, was a resident and employee in Plant City, Florida, in 1996. He had already started using drugs at this point, and his foreman, Harvey Horne, served as the middleman for crystal meth. Doty entered Horne's house one evening, demanded narcotics, and then shot Horne many times in the face. Doty claims in the Netflix documentary that he didn't intend to kill Horne. According to the Tampa Bay Times, it was planned to be a robbery in which Doty would rob the victim while having Brian Lewandowski keep watch. Doty was imprisoned in 1997 after being found guilty of the crime.
Inmates Xavier Rodriguez and Wayne C. Doty were both charged with first-degree murder. The trial court allowed Doty to proceed pro se after a hearing in accordance with Farretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975), but appointed standby counsel. Once the cases against him and Wells were separated, Doty conducted his own investigation, and he ultimately decided to admit guilt to the murder. During the penalty phase, he spoke for himself, with support from standby counsel.
According to the evidence, Doty was incarcerated for the rest of his life for the shooting death of his former employer at the time of the murder. Doty was moved to Florida State Prison (FSP) and given a job as a runner in the "K wing." Four runners were assigned to each wing of the prison, working in pairs to help with various tasks such as serving meals to other inmates and cleaning communal spaces. The runners received special benefits in exchange. Wells, a fellow runner on the K wing who was Doty's running buddy, participated in the killing of Rodriguez.
About two weeks before the incident, the victim, Rodriguez called Doty names and stole some of his tobacco. This was when Doty started making plans for the murder. Doty persuaded a fellow prisoner to create him a knife so he could kill Rodriguez in exchange for tobacco. After dinner on the evening of May 17, 2011, Doty helped pick up the inmate meal trays and found the handmade knife that was concealed in a newspaper. The runners were allowed to use the third-floor interview room, but Doty threw the knife into a dumpster, which he subsequently retrieved. Doty then hid the weapon in the ductwork so he could find it quickly.
Doty and Wells kept a close eye on the patrolling officers that evening to time the murder of Rodriguez. Doty and Wells cajoled Rodriguez into meeting them in the interview room on the third floor, where they then deceived him into allowing them to handcuff him by placing a wager with him that he would be unable to free himself from the "Coast Guard handcuffs." Doty approached Rodriguez from behind and shackled his hands before putting him in a rear chokehold.
Rodriguez initially believed it was a prank, but once Doty "truly got that chokehold locked down, he knew the game was over," he confessed in his confession. Doty let Rodriguez's body fall to the ground after sensing him "become slack." Doty subsequently remarked that Rodriguez's body created a "hollow thud" when it hit the ground.
While Doty pulled the body around the desk and started stabbing Rodriguez with the improvised knife, Wells made sure that no one else entered the room. Even though Doty acknowledged that his intention was to remove Rodriguez's heart "to make sure he was really dead," the dull knife was ineffective for that purpose. Once they were certain that Rodriguez was actually dead, Doty and Wells put a ligature around his neck, smoked a cigarette, took a shower, and then called a jail sergeant to confess to the murder.
The medical examiner, Dr. William Hamilton, testified that the victim died from multiple stab wounds and strangulation. Although the victim may have lost consciousness in as little as 10 to 20 seconds if the chokehold had been executed skillfully, Dr. Hamilton estimates that the victim lost consciousness within 45 to 50 seconds.
The victim lost a small amount of blood from the stab wounds. According to Dr. Hamilton's testimony, all of the wounds were situated very close together, indicating that the victim was not moving during the stabbing. This led him to believe that the victim was still alive when he was stabbed but was unconscious and on the verge of passing away.
Where is Wayne Doty Now?
American double murderer Wayne Charles Doty is now on death row after killing fellow prisoner Xavier Rodriguez, 21, on May 17, 2011.
Doty received a death sentence after entering a plea of guilty to the murder of Xavier Rodriguez, a fellow prisoner whom he killed by stabbing and strangling to death on April 20, 1996. He was serving a life sentence for the shooting death of Harvey Horne II, a night watchman at a Plant City manufacturing plant, during a drug robbery.
On June 5, 2013, Wayne Doty received his initial death sentence, which the Florida Supreme Court upheld in July of that same year. Doty first requested the lower court to remove his attorney and waive all of his appeals when his case was returned to the trial court that sentenced him to post-conviction appeals. However, in Hurst v. Florida, the US Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that Florida's capital punishment rules were unconstitutional.
A defendant had to receive a unanimous verdict to be sentenced to death by a jury. To be sentenced to death under the new law, a defendant must receive a unanimous death verdict from the jury. Doty's initial death sentence was overturned in 2016. Two years later, he was retried, and on May 15, 2018, the jury again unanimously decided to execute him. Doty is the only death row inmate on Florida's death row who has selected the electric chair over a lethal injection as the preferred method of execution. However, Florida has not yet set a date for Doty's execution.
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We spoke with Lux Populi to find out how they use LUX Walker as a VR platform to test complex lighting rigs for their architecture and design clients.
What is Lux Populi about?
Lux Populi is a global first-principles design practice, collaborating with clients and designers from around the world to develop custom crafted designs for each client and their individual project needs. Informed by architecture, identity, context and function, Lux Populi's designs address lighting as a tool dedicated, to carefully tailored responses to our clients' needs.
We were introduced by SAOTA first to the software at their office on Cape Town and eventually as we saw the potential to collaborate side by side with them inside a VR environment, they shared with us Conrad Martin´s contact Info who has been supporting us since the very early stages of LUX Walker.
What issues where you having?
Since it was the first time we were using LUX Walker, the challenge was to find an efficient way to translate the 3D models we standardly produce in our office to a VR environment which will allow us to connect through the Web.
It turned out that that LUX Walker was a very intuitive software which didn't disrupt our natural flow of work significantly and the only software that we know that allows you to connect through distance and do collaborative mark ups in a VR environment. We also have to add that our experience has been so satisfactory thanks to the strong support of the Tenebris Lab team.
What is the main benefit of using LUX Walker in your industry?
The VR nature of the software, allows us to present our designs to our clients in an immersive real scale environment, it provides a streamlined engagement with our collaborators, as well as easy workflow as sub-consultants and it gives us a virtual space to remotely explore and develop our designs as an integral part of the architect's team.


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'RRR' And 'Thor' Star Ray Stevenson Cast As Lead In Movie '1242' – Leak Herald
EXCLUSIVE: RRR and Thor star Ray Stevenson has been set to lead cast in historical drama 1242: Gateway To The West, which is now filming in Budapest, Hungary.
Stevenson takes on the role initially due to be played by Kevin Spacey but the latter was removed from the project by producers last year following news of additional sexual assault charges against the actor.
Stevenson recently played lead antagonist in SS Rajamouli's Oscar-nominated box office hit RRR and is known for playing Volstagg in Marvel's Thor franchise and for TV series Vikings.
Stevenson joins Oscar nominee Eric Roberts (Runaway Train), Michael Ironside (Top Gun), Neil Stuke (Sliding Doors), David Schofield (Gladiator), Jeremy Neumark-Jones (Denial), and Genevieve Florence (Avenue 5).
Carlos Alperin of Galloping Entertainment is handling international sales and will launch the reconfigured project at the upcoming EFM in Berlin.
The movie follows a profoundly spiritual man (Neumark-Jones) of Hungarian Castle Esztergom who must confront and halt the Great Mongolian Army led by Batu Khan, grandson of Ghengis Khan (Mongolian actor Bold Choimbol) from invading Europe in 1242. The story focuses on their unlikely meeting during the Mongolian Lunar New Year when hostilities are paused. Stevenson will portray Papal Legate Cesareani, a secret Mongol ally who plays a key role as go-between.
The international co-production between the UK-Hungary-Mongolia-Australia is directed by veteran Hungarian director Péter Soós from a script written by Áron Horváth and Joan Lane. Bill Chamberlain and Kornél Sipos produce. Carlos Alperin, Paul Brett, Tim Smith, and Csaba Iski are executive-producing.
Composer Mike Moren, who co-wrote Barcelona alongside Queen's Freddie Mercury, is scoring the film.
Producer Bill Chamberlain said: "What an incredible honor to welcome Ray Stevenson, a globally-recognized actor with an impressive range and undeniable charisma."
Added producer Kornél Sipos: "Ray is the ideal lead for our movie 1242: Gateway to the West; his captivating performances in films like RRR prove that beyond doubt! We are honored he's come on board — together, we'll craft something truly remarkable."
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Steve Roycroft is the Chief Executive Officer of RANE. He is an accomplished business leader with over 20 years of operating experience that ranges from launching start-ups to running multi-billion dollar global enterprises. These include building and commercializing businesses in the Financial Services, GRC, Technology, Healthcare, and Media industries.
Earlier in his career, Steve led the sales and commercial efforts for CCBN (Corporate Communications Broadcast Network), a pioneering network-based financial information and technology company. After seven years of rapid growth, CCBN was successfully sold to Thomson Reuters and became part of its Corporate Services division. Over the next eight years, Steve led this division serving as the Global Managing Director. During that period, the business substantially scaled to serve more than 7,000 companies globally with information and workflow solutions for finance, compliance, research and communication professionals. Steve then went on to lead the day-to-day operations of inVentiv Health Commercial, a diversified information, technology, and services company serving the global life sciences and healthcare sectors. With over 13,000 employees inVentiv is a market leader in providing drug development support services and all aspects of commercializing brands for the pharmaceutical industry.
He currently serves as a senior advisor and board member at FRT-Financial Recovery Technologies and Smarsh Inc. Steve is a graduate from Stonehill College with a B.S. in Business Administration.


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4750 Amelia Island Parkway, Amelia Island, FL 32034
904-277-1100 | http://www.ritzcarlton.com/en/Properties/AmeliaIsland/Default.htm
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About The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island
Find yourself in the place where Southern charm meets the sea and live oaks meet white sandy beaches. Southern hospitality at its finest is on display at The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island. One of the most popular beach destinations on the East Coast, this barrier island resort provides a welcome barrier between you and the world beyond. Located on a grand stretch of the island's 13 miles of coastline, The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island is a luxury resort.
The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island -
2019 Winner of "Top Luxury Hotel in Florida" by Questex Travel Group's Luxury Travel Advisor
BEST HOTELS list by U.S. News & World Report, including #1 Best Resort in Jacksonville and #4 Best Resort in Florida.
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Location: South Island
Availability: Daily, Weekly
Payment methods: Cash, Check, Credit Card
Room Amenities: Cable TV, High Speed Internet, Wifi
Beaches & Bunkers Golf
Daily breakfast for two in Coast (tax & gratuity not included)
Up to two (2) rounds of golf at The Golf Club of Amelia Island, includes greens fees and shared cart
Two welcome signature cocktails in The Lobby Bar
Course and tee time based on availability. Golf reservation must be made as one guest for two rounds of golf or two people for one round of golf each.
Golf & Spa Package: Enjoy your choice of 50 min massage per night, one round of golf per night, valet parking. Two-night minimum stay required.
Bar/Lounge, Business Center, Fitness Center, Golf Course, Hot Tub, Laundry Service, Meeting Space, Oceanfront, Pool, Recreational Rentals, Restaurants Nearby, Shopping Nearby, Wheelchair Accessible, Wifi
Condé Nast Traveler 2013 and 2014 Travelers' Gold List
AAA Five Diamond Award 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, as well as 1994-2010
AAA Five Diamond Award for Salt Restaurant 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012
Condé Nast Traveler 2014 Readers' Choice Awards - "Best Hotels in Florida"
Condé Nast Traveler Top 100 U.S. Resort Spas
Travel + Leisure - 500 of the World's Best Hotels 2014
Forbes Travel Guide 2014 Four Star Hotel
Golf Digest - "The 75 Best Golf Resorts in the U.S."
Forbes Traveler - Salt Restaurant's Seat In the Kitchen - one of 7 Chef's Table to get up close and with Top Chefs across the country.
Condé Nast Traveler Reader's Poll - "Top Spas in North America"
Meetings South – Best of the South 2012
Jan 13, 2021 by SavvyTraveljng
Banging starts at 8ish in the morning and goes until 6pm.
When booking, we should have been informed we would not want to be in our room from 8am to 6pm because construction starts before 9am which is what they tell you when you call the front desk after...
Jan 09, 2021 by JRM120211
Best staycation trip ever
I cannot say enough about the amazing staff and property! Our little family of three felt like we were the most important guests during our stay! The way the team from the manager, front desk...
Jan 07, 2021 by ericawM
It's fine.
We first stayed at this hotel in March 2020 (pre-COVID) and experienced several hiccups but figured we would give the hotel the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately when staying again around New Years...


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Sherritt Reports Financial Results for Q3 2020
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES
TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE) --November 04, 2020 --Sherritt International Corporation ("Sherritt", the "Corporation", the "Company") (TSX: S), a world leader in the mining and hydrometallurgical refining of nickel and cobalt from lateritic ores, today reported its financial results for the three- and nine-month periods ended September 30, 2020. All amounts are in Canadian currency unless otherwise noted.
During the quarter, pursuant to its plan of arrangement under the Canadian Business Corporations Act, Sherritt announced the successful closing of the latest step in its program to improve its capital structure. Overall, the transaction which closed on August 31, represented completion of the key Ambatovy part in the broader restructuring of Sherritt's debt obligations.
In summary, this CBCA restructuring:
eliminated a further $300 million in direct debt;
eliminated debt maturities in 2021, 2023, and 2025, and replaced them with maturities in 2026 and 2029;
reduced our cash interest expense by one-third to approximately $30 million per year;
completed our exit from the Ambatovy project, eliminating the associated direct and indirect debt and the risk of being required to fund further cash calls with the associated risk of default; and
achieved all of this with no dilution to the current equity of Sherritt.
CHAIRMAN COMMENTARY
Commenting on the debt restructuring program, Sherritt Chairman Sir Richard Lapthorne said, "Preserving adequate liquidity and rebuilding balance sheet strength have been Sherritt's top priorities since the current management team and Board have been in place. This has been a step-by-step process requiring a sustained concentration on removing the threats to the Corporation's viability, and this process had to focus on Ambatovy. Indeed, final resolution of our Ambatovy position was a key part of the recently completed CBCA arrangement."
He continued, "Sherritt entered the Ambatovy project in 2007 as a 40% partner with Sumitomo and Kores, our Korean partner, through the $1.6 billion acquisition of Dynatec. At that time, the project was forecast to require funding of US$3.3 billion. A senior debt facility of US$2.1 billion with recourse to the three partners was negotiated with the balance to be funded directly by the partners. However, the capital requirement for Ambatovy grew and, at the last count, had reached US$8.5 billion of which the shareholders funded US$6.4 billion. A feature of the shareholder agreement was that each partner had to meet its calls for cash from the joint venture or risk a default, which could cross default to its other borrowings; in Sherritt's case to its publicly traded debentures. As early as 2009, Sherritt was forced to start mortgaging its future earnings from the project by borrowing from the other partners in order to finance its cash calls. By 2016, with accrued compound interest, one of these loans had a balance of $1.4 billion with no direct recourse to Sherritt, whilst the other of $133 million became a liability on Sherritt's consolidated balance sheet."
Sir Richard added, "Over the past six year, the management team has worked tirelessly in seeking to reduce these financial risks created through its Ambatovy commitments. In 2015, a combination of specialists from Sherritt's Technologies business and locally-based expatriate management enabled Ambatovy to operate its mine and plant at the required throughput relative to capacity to enable the senior loans to become without recourse to the partners' own balance sheets. This removed US$840 million from Sherritt's debt profile. In 2017, Sherritt negotiated with its partners to reduce its shareholding in Ambatovy to 12%. As a consequence, the partner loan of $1.4 billion was cancelled and Sherritt's responsibility for meeting the JV's total cash calls dropped from 40% to 12%. Finally, as part of the CBCA Court application completed in August 2020, the 12% stake was surrendered, the remaining partner loan, which had increased to $145 million on Sherritt's Balance Sheet, was cancelled and the financial planning uncertainty created by its cash call and potential default exposures from Ambatovy was extinguished.
"Sherritt has also effectively addressed the non-Ambatovy components in its funding. In 2006 it had borrowed $274 million in publicly-traded debentures. Through the course of funding Ambatovy, total public debenture debt peaked at $1,158 million in 2013. Following the recently completed restructuring, debenture debt has now fallen to $358 million at the end of September 2020. Bondholders also hold a $75 million 2029 note. In 2014, Sherritt sold its coal business for $814 million of total cash proceeds. Not only was this a well-timed business decision, but it also assisted the Corporation's liquidity planning. The cash proceeds were used to redeem $300 million of debentures with the balance ultimately sustaining Sherritt's liquidity during the prolonged Ambatovy exit program."
Sir Richard concluded by saying, "In total, since 2014, Sherritt has eliminated approximately $2.4 billion in debt from the balance sheet along with a further $1.1 billion debt guarantee, and has removed the default risks posed by the Ambatovy agreements. Had we failed to do these, Sherritt would not exist in its current form today."
CEO COMMENTARY
"The completion of the balance sheet initiative and the resolution of the Ambatovy legacy debt puts Sherritt in the best possible position to manage our business through the long term," said David Pathe, President and CEO of Sherritt. "We have achieved this outcome despite the significant volatility in nickel and cobalt pricing and the increasingly aggressive U.S. policy towards Cuba we have seen over the last few years."
Mr. Pathe added, "With the debt restructuring now behind us, our near-term focus will centre on sustaining the momentum we have been able to establish at the Moa Joint Venture and achieve our production targets for 2020. That we are on track for this achievement is a testament to the determination and resiliency of so many Sherritt employees managing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We continue to take proactive actions to manage our liquidity. Since the end of the quarter, we have received a US$15 million distribution from the Moa JV, representing both our 50% share of US$7.5 million and our Cuban partner's share of US$7.5 million, which is being redirected towards overdue receivables pursuant to our 2019 receivables agreement. We have also taken advantage of the recent strength in nickel prices to purchase a derivative contract to provide a floor - but no cap - on 25% of our share of 2021 nickel production at $6.50 per pound, which protects our 2021 cash flow against downside risk to the nickel price next year.
"Over the longer term, we anticipate demand for our products to grow given the strong outlook for nickel in the coming years, particularly as the market adoption of electric vehicles accelerates, and we will bring greater focus to the projects and innovation of our Technologies Group and look to commercialize those innovations to create new revenue streams for Sherritt."
SUMMARY OF KEY Q3 2020 DEVELOPMENTS
Sherritt successfully completed its balance sheet initiative, which improved its capital structure and addressed its Ambatovy investment legacy, following stakeholder approval. As a result of the transaction, Sherritt reduced its total outstanding debt by approximately $301 million, extended the maturities of its note obligations to 2026 and 2029, reduced cash annual interest payments by more than $15 million, and terminated its debt obligations relating to the Ambatovy Joint Venture, all without any dilution of its common shares.
Following close of its balance sheet initiative, Sherritt's note obligations, totaling $433 million, were reclassified as long-term debt.
Sherritt's share of finished nickel production at the Moa Joint Venture (Moa JV) in Q3 2020 was 3,750 tonnes, down 9% from last year, while finished cobalt was 409 tonnes, down 6% from last year. The decline was due to the rescheduling of the planned plant shutdown and maintenance activities at the refinery in Fort Saskatchewan from June to July as previously disclosed. The Moa JV remains on track to meet its production guidance in 2020 and has produced 23,466 tonnes of finished nickel and 2,468 tonnes of finished cobalt on a 100% basis through September 30.
Sherritt ended Q3 2020 with cash and cash equivalents of $165.1 million of which $82.1 million was held by Energas in Cuba. The $7.3 million decrease in Sherritt's liquidity from $172.4 million at the end of Q2 2020 was largely driven by costs associated with the balance sheet initiative, including approximately $16 million of cash payments made to note holders as early consent consideration.
Net earnings from continuing operations totaled $11.4 million, or $0.03 per share, and included a non-cash gain of $143.4 million on the exchange of debentures relating to the balance sheet initiative, offset by a non-cash impairment loss of $115.6 million relating to the write down of Block 10 capital assets.
Sherritt recognized earnings from discontinued operations of $217.1 million related to the disposition of its 12% ownership interest in the Ambatovy Joint Venture as part of the balance sheet initiative and reclassification as discontinued operations.
Sherritt received US$16.3 million in Cuban energy payments as part of the overdue receivables agreement with its Cuban partners. Payments, which included US$14.0 million received in Canada and US$2.3 million accepted in Cuba to support local costs for Sherritt's Oil and Gas operations, were lower than expected as the spread of COVID-19 and the ongoing impact of U.S. sanctions limited Cuba's access to foreign currency in Q3 2020.
Sherritt completed the analysis on a second set of samples from Block 10 that confirmed that the water produced during the test period is from the loss circulation zone, which is located at a depth of approximately 5,300 meters and above the target oil reservoir. The analysis also confirmed that no viable technical solution to prevent the further flow of water into the existing well is possible. While Sherritt still believes that the Block 10 reservoir contains oil, the existing well cannot be used for future production purposes. Sherritt is currently reviewing its options with respect to Block 10, including seeking an earn-in partner. At this time, Sherritt is not contemplating any further investments in Block 10 without first securing an earn-in partner.
Sherritt released its 2019 Sustainability Report that showed progress against the Company's Environmental, Social and Governance targets, including efforts to reduce greenhouse house emissions, maintain peer-leading safety metrics, and commit to doubling the number of female employees by 2030.
DEVELOPMENTS SUBSEQUENT TO THE QUARTER END
The Moa JV paid a US$15 million distribution to its shareholders in November. Sherritt received its 50% share of this distribution, or US$7.5 million, directly. In addition, General Nickel Company, Sherritt's joint venture partner, re-directed its US$7.5 million share of this distribution to the Corporation to be applied against amounts owing to Sherritt from Energas. The re-direction was secured through negotiations between Sherritt and its Cuban partners, and was made in accordance with the June 2019 overdue receivables agreement.
Sherritt purchased put options on 25% of its share of attributable finished nickel production from the Moa JV for 2021 at a strike price of US$6.50/lb. Any cash settlements will be completed on a monthly basis against the average monthly nickel price on the London Metals Exchange and will involve no physical delivery. The hedging strategy, which will be in effect for a 12-month period starting January 1, 2021, is designed to provide Sherritt with cash flow security in 2021 against major downward changes in nickel prices.
Sherritt employee members of Unifor at the refinery in Fort Saskatchewan ratified a new collective agreement through March 31, 2022. The new agreement extends Sherritt's track record of no labour disruptions at the refinery since it began operations in 1954.
Sherritt agreed to an extension for the maturity of its $70 million credit facility from its syndicate of lenders to December 31, 2020. A longer-term extension is expected to be finalized in Q4 2020.
Sherritt continues to be in discussion with its Spanish partners on a potential alternative arrangement relating to the expired $47.0 million letter of credit for reclamation costs associated with Sherritt's Spanish oil assets.
For additional information see the Non-GAAP measures section of this press release.
Q3 2020 FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS(1)
For the nine months ended
$ millions, except per share amount
Combined revenue(2)
Net earnings (loss) from continuing operations for the period
Net earnings (loss) for the period
Cash provided (used) by continuing operations
nm(3)
Combined adjusted operating cash flow(2)
Combined free cash flow(2)
Average exchange rate (CAD/US$)
Net earnings (loss) from continuing operations per share
All non-GAAP measures exclude the Joint Venture performance. As a result of the transaction, Ambatovy Joint Venture's share of loss of an associate and other statement of comprehensive income (loss) items related to the Ambatovy Joint Venture were reclassified to the loss on discontinued operations in the current and comparative periods. The loss on discontinued operations also includes the gain on disposal of Ambatovy Joint Venture Interests in the current period.
For additional information see the Non-GAAP measures section.
Not meaningful (nm)
$ millions, as at
Cash, cash equivalents and short term investments
Loans and borrowings
Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments at September 30, 2020 were $165.1 million, down from $172.4 million at June 30, 2020. The decrease was due to a number of factors including, cash payments of approximately $16 million made to noteholders as early consent consideration and capital expenditures totaling $2.5 million, partially offset by higher Cuban energy payments. In addition, interest payments owed to holders of Sherritt's series of debentures maturing in 2021, 2023 and 2025 were deferred as a result of the balance sheet initiative. Upon close of the transaction, all unpaid and accrued interest amounts were added to the principal amounts of second lien notes exchanged to holders for old notes.
As at September 30, 2020, $82.1 million of Sherritt's cash and cash equivalents was held by Energas in Cuba, down from $82.2 million at the end of Q2 2020.
Sherritt received US$16.3 million in Cuban energy payments as part of its overdue receivables agreement with its Cuban partners in Q3 2020. Payments, which included US$14.0 million received in Canada and US$2.3 million accepted in Cuba to support local costs relating to Sherritt's Oil and Gas operations, were lower than expected as the spread of COVID-19 and the ongoing impact of U.S. sanctions limited Cuba's access to foreign currency in Q3 2020. Total overdue scheduled receivables at September 30, 2020 were US$159.1 million, unchanged from June 30, 2020 due to the timing of payments received and scheduling of expected payments. Subsequent to September 30, 2020, the Corporation received US$2.6 million in Canada from the Cuban overdue receivables agreement and US$2.4 million in Cuba to support local costs.
In Q3 2020, the Moa JV declared dividends of US$15 million, which were subsequently distributed in Q4 2020. In addition to Sherritt receiving its US$7.5 million share of this distribution, General Nickel Company, the Corporation's joint venture partner, re-directed its share of this distribution to Sherritt to be applied against amounts owing to Sherritt from Energas. This re-direction was secured through negotiations between Sherritt and its Cuban partners, and was made in accordance with the June 2019 overdue receivables agreement. Sherritt anticipates receiving further dividend distributions in Q4 2020 given prevailing nickel and cobalt prices.
Sherritt anticipates that its liquidity position through the end of 2020 will largely be dependent on its ability to collect on amounts owed to it by its Cuban energy partners and dividends received from the Moa JV.
Adjusted net loss(1)
For the three months ended September 30
$/share
Net earnings (loss) from continuing operations
Adjusting items:
Unrealized foreign exchange (gain) loss
Gain on debenture exchange
Impairment of Oil assets
Adjusted net loss from continuing operations
For the nine months ended September 30
Moa JV expansion loans ACL revaluation
Net earnings from continuing operations for Q3 2020 was $11.4 million, or $0.03 per share, compared to a net loss of $15.4 million, or $0.04 per share, for the same period last year. Net earnings for Q3 2020 includes a gain of $143.4 million on the exchange of debentures as part of the balance sheet initiative offset by an impairment loss recognized on the write down of exploration and evaluation assets and capitalized spare parts relating to Block 10 drilling activities totaling $115.6 million.
Adjusted net loss from continuing operations was $16.1 million, or $0.04 per share, for the three months ended September 30, 2020 compared to an adjusted net loss from continuing operations of $20.6 million, or $0.05 per share, for Q3 2019.
On the close of the balance sheet initiative, Sherritt exchanged its 12% ownership interest and its loans and operator fee receivables in the Ambatovy Joint Venture for $145.6 million owed to its partners. Consistent with IFRS standards, Sherritt's investment in the Ambatovy Joint Venture met the criteria to be classified and presented as discontinued operations for accounting purposes. As a result, Sherritt's share of loss of an associate, net of tax, and other components of comprehensive income (loss) related to the Ambatovy Joint Venture were reclassified to the earnings (loss) on discontinued operations, net of tax, in the current and comparative periods. Sherritt recognized earnings on the disposition and reclassification of $217.1 million in Q3 2020 as a result.
Nickel market conditions continued to improve in the third quarter of 2020, sustaining the trend started in Q2 with the easing of lock-down restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the restart of economic and manufacturing activities, particularly in China.
Nickel prices on the London Metals Exchange (LME) opened at US$5.69/lb on July 1 and closed on September 30 at US$6.52/lb, representing a growth of 15%.
While nickel prices climbed during Q3, nickel inventory levels on the London Metals Exchange (LME) and the Shanghai Future Exchange (SHFE) remained relatively flat. Combined inventory levels at September 30 totaled approximately 263,000 tonnes, up from approximately 262,000 tonnes at June 30. Nickel inventories on the LME and SHFE have stayed relatively flat despite the reduced production of stainless steel globally on a year to date basis largely because a number of nickel mines around the world have either significantly reduced production or have gone into care and maintenance as a result of the spread of COVID-19. Production at the Moa JV has largely been unaffected by the spread of COVID-19 through September 30.
Renewed interest in electric vehicles and bullish forecasts for accelerated demand growth in the coming years have triggered speculative purchasing from commodity investors, sustaining the nickel price momentum into the fourth quarter. A number of carmakers, in particular, have indicated that high purity nickel will be the primary metal in their battery chemistries. At October 20, nickel prices had risen to US$7.16/lb, the highest price since the start of 2020. This renewed interest in nickel is expected to contribute to higher prices into 2021.
Over the medium term, nickel prices are expected to be volatile given the ongoing economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic. As mining operations resume production activities, nickel inventory levels may rise given that supply could exceed demand as a number of industries that are large consumers of stainless steel, such as food and hospitality sector, will experience a delayed or slower economic recovery, particularly if the second wave of the pandemic is prolonged.
In light of this uncertainty, a number of industry analysts have lowered their forecasts for nickel demand from end consumers, reflecting negative market sentiment through the end of 2021. Previously, demand for nickel through 2025 was expected to grow by approximately 3% per year to 2.8 million tonnes according to market research by Wood Mackenzie.
Added to this uncertainty is the substantial increase in nickel pig iron production, leading some industry analysts to predict an oversupplied nickel market in the near term. This development is putting additional pressure on producers of lower-grade material such as ferronickel, which is currently selling at significant discount. As a result, it remains unclear how nickel prices will fare in the near term.
Over the longer term, demand for nickel is expected to increase with the increased adoption of electric vehicles since nickel – along with cobalt – is a key metal needed to manufacture assorted energy storage batteries.
Cobalt prices experienced a turnaround in Q3 following an extended period of softness through much of the first half of the year as a result of the impact COVID-19 on consumer demand. Standard grade cobalt prices, in fact, rose 9% ending the quarter at US$15.65/lb according to data collected by Fastmarkets MB. Standard grade cobalt prices on July 1 closed at US$14.30/lb, widely believed by industry watchers and traders to be a floor-level price.
It is speculated that market conditions have improved for a number of factors, including growing demand from battery manufacturers as a result of higher demand for electronics and computer equipment due to the growing trend of working from home accelerated since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Increasing cobalt demand from battery makers has helped to offset demand softness from other industries, such as the aerospace sector, that make extensive use of cobalt as a key component to manufacturing activities as a super alloy. With recovery of these sectors expected to be slow or delayed, it is anticipated that cobalt market conditions will experience some volatility.
Over the longer term, the outlook for cobalt remains strong given the accelerated growth of electric vehicle demand expected in the coming years. Cobalt, in particular, is a key component of rechargeable batteries providing energy density and stability.
REVIEW OF OPERATIONS
Moa Joint Venture (50% interest) and Fort Site (100%)
$ millions, except as otherwise noted
(Loss) earnings from operations
Cash provided by operations
Adjusted operating cash flow(1)
Free cash flow(1)
Distributions and repayments to Sherritt from the Moa JV
PRODUCTION VOLUMES (tonnes)
Mixed Sulphides
Finished Nickel
Finished Cobalt
NICKEL RECOVERY (%)
SALES VOLUMES (tonnes)
AVERAGE-REFERENCE PRICES (US$ per pound)
AVERAGE REALIZED PRICE(1)
Nickel ($ per pound)
Cobalt ($ per pound)
Fertilizer ($ per tonne)
UNIT OPERATING COSTS(1) (US$ per pound)
Nickel - net direct cash cost
SPENDING ON CAPITAL(3)
Average standard grade cobalt published price per Fastmarkets MB.
Spending on capital for the nine months ended September 30, 2019 excludes right of use assets recognized on adoption of IFRS 16. Refer to note 4 of the audited consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2019 for additional information.
Mixed sulphides production at the Moa JV in Q3 2020 was 4,671 tonnes, up 12% from 4,165 tonnes produced in Q3 2019. The increase was largely due to the normalized availability of diesel fuel supply at Moa, resulting in the greater use of mining equipment and better access to higher grade material compared to last year. In Q3 2019, mixed sulphides production at Moa was negatively impacted by diesel fuel conservation measures implemented in response to reduced diesel fuel supply availability caused by economic and trade sanctions imposed on Venezuela, Cuba's largest oil supplier. The diesel conservation measures in Q3 2019 included reduced use of mining equipment and increased draw down of lower grade ore stockpiles.
Finished nickel production in Q3 2020 totaled 3,750 tonnes, down 9% from 4,139 tonnes produced in Q3 2019. Finished cobalt production for Q3 2020 was 409 tonnes, down 6% from 436 tonnes produced in Q3 2019.
Consistent with previous disclosure, finished nickel and cobalt production totals in Q3 2020 were impacted by the rescheduling of the planned plant shutdown and maintenance activities at the refinery at Fort Saskatchewan from June to July, and by the extension of the shutdown by four days. The shutdown extension was caused by limited local contractor availability and additional repair scope identified. The decision to reschedule the shutdown and maintenance activities was taken as a safety measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The Moa JV remains on track to achieve its production targets for 2020 based on year-to-date finished nickel production of 23,466 tonnes and finished cobalt production of 2,468 tonnes on a 100% basis through September 30, 2020.
Sales volume for finished nickel in Q3 2020 was 3,568 tonnes, down 14% from 4,145 tonnes for last year. The decline was largely driven by the shutdown of the refinery in Fort Saskatchewan and by the timing of nickel deliveries. Sales volume for finished cobalt was up 14% to 501 tonnes and fertilizer sales volume was up 44% to 36,169 tonnes in Q3 2020. The respective increases were due to the timing of deliveries and strong market demand.
Largely as a result of the 14% decrease in nickel sales volume and the 8% decrease in average realized nickel prices, revenue at the Moa JV declined by 13% to $97.7 million in Q3 2020 when compared to $112.2 million for Q3 2019. The revenue decline was partly offset by higher cobalt and fertilizer sales volumes, although cobalt and fertilizer realized prices declined 5% and 16%, respectively, in Q3 2020 from last year.
Mining, processing and refining (MPR) costs for Q3 2020 were US$4.90/lb, down 6% from US$5.22/lb for Q3 2019. MPR costs declined primarily due to lower input costs related to sulphur and fuel oil as well as due to austerity measures undertaken to reduce operating expenses.
NDCC in Q3 2020 was US$4.04/lb, down 8% from US$4.37/lb for the same period last year reflecting the decline in MPR costs, lower third-party feed costs and a 25% increase in cobalt by-product credits.
Sustaining capital spending in Q3 2020 was $6.8 million, up 39% from $4.9 million in Q3 2019. The year-over-year increase was due primarily to the timing of planned capital expenditures.
Sherritt's share of planned capital spend for 2020 at the Moa JV (50% basis) and Fort Site (100%) is expected to be US$22 million, down from US$34 million initially forecasted at the start of the year. The reduction in planned capital spend is due to austerity measures implemented earlier in 2020, including the decision to defer a number of capital spend projects.
In addition to being on track with its production targets for 2020, the Moa JV also expects to meet its guidance for unit costs and planned capital spend for the year.
In Q3 2020 Sherritt and the General Nickel Company S.A., the two Moa JV shareholders, considered amendments to the Moa JV expansion loans, and mutually agreed to convert $548.0 million of loans receivable into equity. Based on Sherritt's 50% equity interest in the Moa JV, the agreement resulted in a decrease of the Corporation's expansion loans receivable and commensurate increase in the Corporation's investment in the Moa JV. The conversion of the expansion loans into equity, which did not result in any change to the ownership interest percentage of either Moa JV shareholder, results in a simpler capital structure for the Moa JV, and results in all future distributions to shareholders being in the form of dividends.
Earnings (loss) from operations
Cash (used) provided by operations
PRODUCTION AND SALES (bopd)
Gross working-interest (GWI) – Cuba
Total net working-interest (NWI)
AVERAGE REFERENCE PRICE (US$ per barrel)
U.S. Gulf Coast High Sulphur Fuel Oil (USGC HSFO)
AVERAGE-REALIZED PRICE(1) (NWI)
Cuba ($ per barrel)
UNIT OPERATING COSTS(1) (GWI)
Development, facilities and other
Gross working-interest oil production in Cuba in Q3 2020 was 2,886 barrels of oil per day (bopd), down 29% from 4,060 bopd for Q3 2019. Lower production in the current year period was primarily due to natural reservoir declines and the absence of new development drilling.
Revenue in Q3 2020 was $5.6 million, down 19% when compared to Q3 2019 due to lower production and lower realized average prices in Cuba, but partially offset by a weaker Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar.
Unit operating costs in Cuba in Q3 2020 were $30.93 per barrel, up 45% when compared to Q3 2019 as a result of lower GWI production and the impact of a weaker Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar. Costs in Cuba are generally denominated in U.S. currency.
In Q3 2020, Sherritt reversed accruals of capital spending previously made totaling $2.1 million and recognized a total impairment loss of $115.6 million in the Oil and Gas segment relating to Block 10 drilling activities. The impairment loss consisted of a $95.0 million impairment on exploration and evaluation assets and a $20.6 million impairment on capital spare parts included within property, plant and equipment.
In Q3 2020, Sherritt completed the analysis on a second set of samples from Block 10 that confirmed that the water produced during the test period is from the loss circulation zone, which located at a depth of approximately 5,300 meters and above the target oil reservoir. While Sherritt still believes that the Block 10 reservoir contains oil, the existing well cannot be used for future production purposes. The analysis confirmed conditions existing in Q3 2020 that resulted in the impairment record. Sherritt is currently reviewing its options with respect to Block 10, including seeking an earn-in partner. At this time, Sherritt is not contemplating any further investments in Block 10 drilling without first securing an earn-in partner.
Based on performance through September 30, the Oil and Gas business remains on track to achieve its 2020 guidance for production and unit costs. As a result of the analysis completed at Block 10 in Q3, planned capital spend for 2020 has been lowered to US$1.5 million from US$4.0 million at the start of the year.
$ millions (33 ?% basis), except as otherwise noted
Earnings from operations
Electricity (GWh)
AVERAGE-REALIZED PRICE(1)
Electricity ($/MWh)
UNIT OPERATING COSTS(1) ($/MWh)
NET CAPACITY FACTOR (%)
Power production in Q3 2020 was 152 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity, down 23% from 197 GWh for the comparable period of 2019 as a result of a decline in gas supply.
Average-realized prices in Q3 2020 were $57.55, up 4% from $55.50 last year. The increase was due to the depreciation of the Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. currency.
Revenue in Q3 2020 totaled $9.4 million, down 22% from $12.1 million for last year. The decrease was primarily due to lower power production.
Unit operating costs in Q3 2020 were $14.63/MWh, up 1% from $14.42/MWh for last year. Sherritt continues to limit operational spending in relation to the receipt of funds under its Cuban energy agreements. Unit operating costs for Q3 2020 were also impacted by a lower production and a weakening of the Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar as Power operating costs are generally denominated in U.S. currency.
Based on performance through September 30, the Power business is on track to achieve its 2020 guidance for production and planned capital spend. Unit cost targets have been lowered to $20.00 to $21.50 per MWh based on performance year to date and anticipated power production in Q4 2020.
2020 REVIEW OF STRATEGIC PRIORITIES
The table below lists Sherritt's Strategic Priorities for 2020, and summarizes how the Corporation has performed against those priorities.
2020 Actions
PRESERVE LIQUIDITY AND BUILD BALANCE SHEET STRENGTH
Continue to emphasize de-leveraging of the balance sheet within the context of a low commodity price environment.
In Q3 2020, Sherritt successfully completed a balance sheet initiative, which improved its capital structure and addressed its Ambatovy investment legacy following strong stakeholder support. The transaction resulted in the elimination of approximately $301 million of total debt, savings of more than $15 million in annual cash interest payments and the extension of debt maturities to 2026 and 2029.
In concert with the balance sheet initiative and in response to the economic uncertainty caused by the spread of COVID-19, Sherritt has implemented a number of austerity measures and identified opportunities to save or defer approximately $90 million of capital spend and operating and administrative expenses. These austerity measures will be applied against 2020 budgeted expenditures for Sherritt's operations and corporate office as well as the Moa JV (100% basis).
In Q3 2020, Sherritt reduced its administrative expenses by $2.1 million when compared to Q3 2019 (excluding stock-based compensation, depreciation and costs associated with the balance sheet initiative). Administrative expenses were offset by $0.9 million received via the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy.
Optimize working capital and receivables collection
Largely as a result of Cuba's reduced access to foreign currency due to the impacts of COVID-19 and ongoing US sanctions, Sherritt received US$16.3 million of an expected US$22.5 million in Cuban energy payments in Q3 2020. Sherritt anticipates variability in the timing and the amount of energy payments through 2020.
Operate the Metals business to maintain a leadership position as a low-cost producer of finished nickel and cobalt while maximizing Free Cash Flow
The Moa JV reduced mining, processing and refining (MPR) costs in Q3 2020 by 6% from last year through a combination of factors, including lower input commodity prices, the benefits of ongoing operational excellence initiatives and the implementation of austerity measures.
UPHOLD GLOBAL OPERATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN FINISHED NICKEL LATERITE PRODUCTION
Further reduce NDCC towards the goal of being consistently in the lowest cost quartile.
NDCC in Q3 2020 decreased by 8% to US$4.04/lb from US$4.37/lb last year as a result of lower MPR costs and the benefit of higher cobalt by-product credits.
Maximize production of finished nickel and cobalt and improve predictability over 2019 results
Based on production results on a year-to-date basis, the Moa JV remains on track to produce between 32,000 and 33,000 tonnes of finished nickel and between 3,300 tonnes and 3,400 tonnes of finished cobalt in 2020.
Achieve peer leading performance in environmental, health, safety and sustainability
In Q3 2020, Sherritt experienced one recordable incident at the Fort Site and no lost time incidents.
Up to September 30th 2020, the Moa Joint Venture (Moa Nickel Site and Fort Site) had a total recordable incident frequency rate (TRIFR) of 0.19 and a lost time incident frequency rate (LTIFR) of 0.12; the Oil and Gas business had a TRIFR and LTIFR of 0.00; and the Power business had a TRIFR and LTIFR of 0.00.
Overall Sherritt had TRIFR of 0.12 and a LTIFR rate of 0.07. Sherritt remains in the lowest quartile of its benchmark peer set of data.
OPTIMIZE OPPORTUNITIES IN CUBAN ENERGY BUSINESS
Successfully execute Block 10 drilling program
Sherritt completed the analysis on a second set of samples from Block 10 that confirmed that the water produced during the test period is from the loss circulation zone, which located at a depth of approximately 5,300 meters and above the target oil reservoir. The analysis also confirmed that no viable technical solution to prevent the further flow of water into the existing well is possible. While Sherritt still believes that the Block 10 reservoir contains oil, the existing well cannot be used for future production purposes. Sherritt is currently reviewing its options with respect to Block 10, including seeking an earn-in partner. At this time, Sherritt is not contemplating any further investments in Block 10 without first securing an earn-in partner.
2020 Production, unit operating costs and capital spending guidance
The guidance for 2020 reflects Sherritt's targets for production, unit costs and capital spending updated from those announced on January 22, 2020.
for 2020 -
actuals -
2020 guidance -
Production volumes, unit operating costs and spending on capital
Production volumes
Moa Joint Venture (tonnes, 100% basis)
Nickel, finished
Cobalt, finished
Oil – Cuba (gross working-interest, bopd)
Oil and Gas – All operations (net working-interest, boepd)
Electricity (GWh, 33?% basis)
Unit operating costs
Moa Joint Venture - NDCC (US$ per pound)
Oil and Gas - Cuba (unit operating costs, $ per barrel)
Electricity (unit operating cost, $ per MWh)
Spending on capital
Moa Joint Venture (50% basis), Fort Site (100% basis)(2)
US$22 (CDN$30) (1)
US$17 (CDN$23)
US$4 (CDN$6) (1)
US$1 (CDN$1)
US$1.5 (CDN$2)
Power (33?% basis)
US$1 (CDN$1.3)
Spending on capital (excluding Corporate)
US$24.5 (CDN$33)
Guidance updated June 30, 2020.
Spending is 50% of US$ expenditures for the Moa JV and 100% expenditures for Fort Site fertilizer and utilities.
The Corporation uses combined results, Adjusted EBITDA, average-realized price, unit operating cost/NDCC, adjusted earnings/loss, adjusted operating cash flow and free cash flow to monitor the performance of the Corporation and its operating divisions. Management believes these measures enable investors and analysts to compare the Corporation's financial performance with its competitors and/or evaluate the results of its underlying business. These measures do not have a standard definition under IFRS and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS. As these measures do not have a standardized meaning, they may not be comparable to similar measures provided by other companies. See Sherritt's Management's Discussion and Analysis for the nine months ended September 30, 2020 for further information and reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable IFRS measure.
CONFERENCE CALL AND WEBCAST
Sherritt will hold its conference call and webcast November 5, 2020 at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time to review its Q3 2020 results. Dial-in and webcast details are as follows:
North American callers, please dial:
International callers, please dial:
Live webcast:
www.sherritt.com
Please dial in 15 minutes before the start of the call to secure a line. Alternatively, listeners can access the conference call and presentation via the webcast available on Sherritt's website.
An archive of the webcast and replay of the conference call will also be available on the website.
COMPLETE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
Sherritt's complete condensed consolidated financial statements and MD&A for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2020 are available at www.sherritt.com and should be read in conjunction with this news release. Financial and operating data can also viewed in the investor relations section of Sherritt's website.
ABOUT SHERRITT
Sherritt is a world leader in the mining and refining of nickel and cobalt from lateritic ores with projects and operations in Canada and Cuba. The Corporation is the largest independent energy producer in Cuba, with extensive oil and power operations across the island. Sherritt licenses its proprietary technologies and provides metallurgical services to mining and refining operations worldwide. The Corporation's common shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "S".
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the use of statements that include such words as "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "intend", "plan", "forecast", "likely", "may", "will", "could", "should", "suspect", "outlook", "potential", "projected", "continue" or other similar words or phrases. Specifically, forward-looking statements in this document include, but are not limited to, statements set out in the "Outlook" section of this press release and certain expectations regarding production volumes, operating costs and capital spending; supply, demand and pricing outlook in the nickel and cobalt markets; the impact of COVID-19; qualification for the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS); anticipated payments of outstanding receivables; drill plans and results on exploration wells; and amounts of certain other commitments.
Forward looking statements are not based on historical facts, but rather on current expectations, assumptions and projections about future events, including commodity and product prices and demand; the level of liquidity and access to funding; share price volatility; production results; realized prices for production; earnings and revenues; development and exploration wells and enhanced oil recovery in Cuba; environmental rehabilitation provisions; availability of regulatory and creditor approvals and waivers; compliance with applicable environmental laws and regulations; debt repayments redemptions and deferrals; collection of accounts receivable; and certain corporate objectives, goals and plans. By their nature, forward looking statements require the Corporation to make assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties. There is significant risk that predictions, forecasts, conclusions or projections will not prove to be accurate, that those assumptions may not be correct and that actual results may differ materially from such predictions, forecasts, conclusions or projections.
The Corporation cautions readers of this press release not to place undue reliance on any forward looking statement as a number of factors could cause actual future results, conditions, actions or events to differ materially from the targets, expectations, estimates or intentions expressed in the forward looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors include, but are not limited to, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, changes in the global price for nickel, cobalt, oil and gas, fertilizers or certain other commodities; security market fluctuations and price volatility; level of liquidity; access to capital; access to financing; the risk to Sherritt's entitlements to future distributions from the Moa Joint Venture; risk of future non-compliance with debt restrictions and covenants and mandatory repayments; uncertainty of exploration results and Sherritt's ability to replace depleted mineral and oil and gas reserves; risks associated with the Corporation's joint venture partner; variability in production at Sherritt's operations in Cuba; risks related to Sherritt's operations in Cuba; risks related to the U.S. government policy toward Cuba, including the U.S. embargo on Cuba and the Helms-Burton legislation; potential interruptions in transportation; uncertainty of gas supply for electrical generation; the Corporation's reliance on key personnel and skilled workers; the possibility of equipment and other failures; risks associated with mining, processing and refining activities; uncertainty of resources and reserve estimates; the potential for shortages of equipment and supplies, including diesel; supplies quality issues; risks related to environmental liabilities including liability for reclamation costs, tailings facility failures and toxic gas releases; risks related to the Corporation's corporate structure; political, economic and other risks of foreign operations; risks associated with Sherritt's operation of large projects generally; risks related to the accuracy of capital and operating cost estimates; foreign exchange and pricing risks; compliance with applicable environment, health and safety legislation and other associated matters; risks associated with governmental regulations regarding climate change and greenhouse gas emissions; risks relating to community relations and maintaining the Corporation's social license to grow and operate; credit risks; competition in product markets; future market access; interest rate changes; risks in obtaining insurance; uncertainties in labour relations; uncertainty in the ability of the Corporation to enforce legal rights in foreign jurisdictions; uncertainty regarding the interpretation and/or application of the applicable laws in foreign jurisdictions; legal contingencies; risks related to the Corporation's accounting policies; identification and management of growth opportunities; uncertainty in the ability of the Corporation to obtain government permits; risks to information technologies systems and cybersecurity; failure to comply with, or changes to, applicable government regulations; bribery and corruption risks, including failure to comply with the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act or applicable local anti-corruption law; the ability to accomplish corporate objectives, goals and plans for 2020; and the Corporation's ability to meet other factors listed from time to time in the Corporation's continuous disclosure documents. Additional risks, uncertainties and other factors include, but are not limited to, the ability of the Corporation to achieve its financial goals; the ability of the Corporation to continue as a going concern; the ability of the Corporation to continue to realize its assets and discharge its liabilities and commitments; the Corporation's future liquidity position, and access to capital, to fund ongoing operations and obligations (including debt obligations); the ability of the Corporation to stabilize its business and financial condition; the ability of the Corporation to implement and successfully achieve its business priorities; and the ability of the Corporation to comply with its contractual obligations, including, without limitation, its obligations under debt arrangements. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive and should be considered in conjunction with the risk factors described in this press release and in the Corporation's other documents filed with the Canadian securities authorities, including without limitation the Management's Discussion and Analysis for the three months ended September 30, 2020 and the Annual Information Form of the Corporation dated March 19, 2020 for the period ending December 31, 2019, which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.
The Corporation may, from time to time, make oral forward-looking statements. The Corporation advises that the above paragraph and the risk factors described in this press release and in the Corporation's other documents filed with the Canadian securities authorities should be read for a description of certain factors that could cause the actual results of the Corporation to differ materially from those in the oral forward-looking statements. The forward-looking information and statements contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof and the Corporation undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any oral or written forward-looking information or statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. The forward-looking information and statements contained herein are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.
Joe Racanelli, Director of Investor Relations
E-mail: investor@sherritt.com