My Career - Part 10 - Kupang (2018 - 2019)

There are a number of posts in this blog that talk about my time in Kupang with Gulf. So I won't flog the dead horse too much so to speak. Plus frankly the jury is still out as to how this project is going to potentially be funded going forward. Not that my pissy musings will have any impact, but I'd hate for any comment I make to be taken the wrong way by the wrong person. So we'll be fairly broad in our descriptions shall we say? Haha, that's what I say now. When I get stuck in, well Gulf, be ready for broadsides you fuckers.

I joined Gulf on the back of 12 months out of the game, working in the family business back in Barooga. It was an opportunity almost too good to be true frankly - it scratched two itches. One, it was a residential role, and two, it was back in SE Asia, my spiritual home. I was super-pumped. I met the charismatic Hamish and the debonair John in Bali for an interview, after first shooting up to Kupang to meet the rest of the management team, largely consisting of Paul and Sam. This was a project that had been going in some way for bloody years, but due to corrupt and/or inept management and/or local government, and/or dubiously-motivated investors, it went broke and went back to Square #1 a couple of years before I got involved. Hamish was very bullish that he had, in fact, sourced the required funding, signed the deal, and we were good to fucking go. I impressed them, they impressed me, we signed on.

That saw us leaving Barooga in March 2018, farking hell that seems like aeons ago now, yet it was just seven years. Amazing how the passage of time can appear to be lengthened by the volume of experience that transpires within it. We arrived, found a place to live (not many choices really, with Emerald Park being pretty much the only secure condo in the city), got the kids in school (again, not much choice here), and I got into work. 

What we were looking to develop was manganese. Mn, as it is found in Timor, is deposited by mud volcanoes, which are undersea vents essentially. The mineral-rich fluid is erupted into the sea, and in this case, due to the content, as the component parts cooled and fell through the water, Mn nodules were formed, which were deposited on the sea bed. See below:

These are the things that lie around all over Timor, in their millions. In fact the locals have made a lucrative industry over many years, by simply picking them up, putting them in baskets, and selling them to local or Chinese traders. We had ~50 different identified deposits, although they were not easy to model and quantify, given the nature of the deposit. 

My influence in this role was to provide an overall mining plan, to get the operations off the ground. The idea was to mix traditional and mechanised methods. In doing so, we hope to keep the locals happy and engaged, as well as maximising ore recovery at a low unit cost. To facilitate this, we would mechanise mining in the guts of most deposits, and allow artisanal mining on the fringes, where high productivity would be difficult anyway. It was a good plan. What really propelled us forward though, was my discovery that over 50% of the ore in Mn deposits was actually contained in fines. This was a potential game-changer. All we had to do was figure out a way to get the fines out. Generally-speaking, this was a piece of cake. The challenge was that 95% of the Mn deposits are in under-developed areas, with little access to electricity, and virtually no access to fresh water. So we needed to figure out a way to dry-screen this stuff. We partnered with an engineering firm in Jakarta, who's name escapes me now. They came up with a few possible solutions, but it was always going to be difficult without access to water. When the mining moratorium came up, we put all development activities except building the smelter on hold, to optimise cashflow, so we never finalised this unfortunately. 

The next little snippet of mine to emerge came from discussions with my team. You see, NTT, the Indonesian state that Kupang and GMG's activities were in, is merely the western half of the island of Timor. Much like many contemporary state boundaries, this division comes not from local history, but from colonial history - the west was controlled by the Dutch prior to independence, and the east by Portugal. Plus, there was a small area in the west controlled by the Portuguese, which is now an enclave of Timor Leste, within Indonesia. The Indo's controlled TL for some time, and the path to independence for Timor Leste was a painful one. So much so that even now (then, in 2019 I mean), it is still much more under-developed than NTT, and that goes doubly for their mining industry. Geology knows no political boundaries however, and as such, the Mn deposits that are a rich part of NTT's mineral wealth, are even more so in TL. My goal was to find local partners, and look towards developing these assets with Gulf. We made bloody good progress too, but alas, things turned awry. The reason this happened was that I voiced my disquiet with the board about how we were approaching funding, what the real motives of our Indo partners were, and that we were not being all that honest with shareholders. Me raising these objections in a board meeting saw my contract being not renewed. At the time, I was already unhappy with my boss and the board, so I was pleased to find a way out. 

That's a slide from one of my numerous board presentations. If my kids are reading this in due course, and have any interest in finding out more about this or any other aspect of my work, well the archives are there. Steve and Woody had similar issues, but stuck it out, Woody in a big way, being chief financier for some time. I'd seriously consider going back if it was those two running the show, but never if Mr. H. was involved. He is a maniac.

At some point I'll likely put together a post about life in Kupang, as it was quite the experience. But for now, I'll leave these couple of snippets. I was on Instagram earlier today, and for whatever reason, looked up Lala's school in Kupang. As it happens, there are numerous posts from back in the day that she stars in! One such example can be found here - Stella Gracia School

One last aspect I want to mention about the Kupang experience is this. In Malaysia, I drove myself everywhere, as did all the expats. Yes the roads could be a bit crazy, but by and large, it was easy and safe enough to get around. In Indo however, that is frowned upon, as driving as an expat can get one into serious trouble in the event of an accident. So at Kupang, I had a driver. For a fair while is was a guy with the same name as me, but our favourite was always Pak Gerson. He was a grand chap and someone I think of fondly. The kids loved him too. That's him and me below. I hope you're going well Pak!