For CPT Matt,
Who can access this site but not that blog post, here is the text of that second update. Some formatting and a link may be lost on the paste, but here you go:
Second Update: Alloy Steel's Malaga headquarters is shut down for its Christmas break, but I was able to get a hold of Alloy Steel's Brisbane-based International Manager Gregg Muller. Gregg says Alloy Steel's domestic sales reps report to him and he also handles international sales, freeing up Gene to focus more on R&D and manufacturing. Gregg was kind enough to spend an hour on the phone with me just now, and he answered a number of questions. Some notes from our conversation follow.
New mills:
- The third mill is currently about 3/4ths built. Gregg says these mills take about four months to build and another two months to test. They take that long to build because Alloy Steel builds the mills itself, partly to protect its proprietary technology, and partly because they have to build components that they can't get off the shelf. Greg estimates the third mill will be producing product by March or April. After that, he believes the company will start building the fourth mill. He says the third mill will be bigger than the second mill. Not sure, but he believes the intent is to finance the construction of mills three and four out of cash flow, as the previous one was.
Additional employees:
- Greg says it only takes 3 employees per shift to run a mill. The mills are computer controlled, and not labor intensive. At maximum capacity, they would run two 12 hour shifts. Prior to the Christmas break, the mills were running about 18-20 hours per day. He anticipates they might approach 24 hours per day by the end of January. Prior to the BHP deal, they were down to about 10 hours per day. Gregg agreed that it would seem the company would need to hire more than three additional workers to run two new mills.
Current international business:
- Greg said the company has been active working with distributers in Chile and India, and he expects to close deal with a Brazilian distributer when he travels there in February. He started talking with this distributer six months ago. That distributer would be supplying Vale in Brazil, in addition to possibly other companies.
Indonesia:
- The outpost in Indonesia will start as a sales office, which is scheduled to open at the end of January. Greg says it only takes about 12 days to ship product there from Perth. If all goes well, Gregg says the company may build a mill in Indonesia toward the end of next year. If so, that would be the company's fifth mill.
Mongolia:
- Greg was last in Mongolia in October. The largest undeveloped copper mine in the world Oyu Tolgoi finally got the go-ahead from the Mongolian government a few months ago, after 7 years of delays. Gregg has heard that they are expecting to be moving dirt by 2011. Alloy Steel is looking to circle back with Geomandel in 2010 so they are ready for 2011. Also talking to OEMs that will be working on the project.
3-D cladding process:
- Not currently manufacturing or marketing it; currently focused on wear plates. Believes it could be a logical follow-up product sale to current clients down the road though. Might get more tweaking by Gene before then.
New developments with Super Arcoplate:
- Greg says they can now produce plate with a thickness of 1.25 inches, or 31 millimeters. He says they are trying to perfect producing a plate with 1.5 inch thickness, which will get them into casting, and open up new business possibilities. The 3rd mill is being set up so that it can produce plate an inch and a half thick once that level of thickness is perfected.
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