Robert Gottliebsen Business Spectator
“RG: If Gunns get the money and gain government approval will you build the pulp mill? WK: Why do you guys keep asking me about this pulp mill? We’ve got big headlines… RG: That’s why I’m asking you because I saw the headlines. WK: Some guy said to me “are you going to build the pulp mill” and I said I’ll give you the same answer that I gave three years ago, the same answer that I gave you two years ago and the same answer I gave you one year ago: I think it’s highly improbable. And of course they leapt on that and I think it was sort of plastered all around Tasmania and Gunns are giving me a bit of a bagging that I’m uninformed and misinformed and so on and so forth. At the end of the day I don’t know what their feasibility studies say and what they can fund and not fund, but all I can say is that there is a significant impediment to getting that done from a financing perspective and a process perspective and a completion perspective and theoretically we have a contract between…a joint venture between John Holland and MacMahon sitting there. We’re not specifically doing anything on it. We’re just waiting and at the end of the day we’ll see what comes of it. It’s very difficult for us to say is it going to happen or not happen. We don’t have a contract in front of us. We don’t know what the terms and conditions would be. We have a sort of status like ‘preferred contractor’ which is I suppose a bit like having a preferred girlfriend. I mean, where’s it going to go from here? That’s the big question mark.” Read more here (You’ll hae to register, but it’s simple!)
