Cockatoo Coal (COK.ASX) is one of the better coal stocks in the market given this company has a number of high profile coal industry executives - mind you they are mostly marketing people. Importantly there are a number of coal consumers with significant equity in the company. The company has a large portfolio of coal-bearing tenure in Queensland's Bowen and Surat Basins hosting significant resources of semi-coking, PCI and thermal coal. These resources are being assessed and promise to offer substantial increases in reserves. The company also needs to participate in a railway extension to the Surat Basin, and in time will need to secure a port allocation for exporting coal. These issues will be addressed in time. The other critical industry for the industry is carbon emissions taxes. This is a difficult issue to assess given the political coercion, though personally I have written a
book about the lack of real evidence to support the anthropological global warming hypothesis. This debate is being carried by governments and the media, and not by scientists. There remains opponents to the argument who are ignored. Critical thinking scientists are the minority. Science is not a popularity contest. When Jamie Durie, the gardening guru and TV presenter is in the Arctic telling us that seals are dying out because of global warming....our scientific scepticism has to kick in. When we are told that the ice sheets in Antarctica are melting...when in fact its one in four regions, and the ice sheets in the other regions are growing....you need to question the validity of the news.
The implication is that coal stocks could greatly benefit from a desensitisation of the global warming issue. My sense is that regardless of whether there is global warming, governments are intent on expanding their indirect taxing powers, i.e. They want a broader-based energy consumption tax. For more information on Cockatoo Coal read the company
presentations or the broker
reports.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com