A month is a long time in carbon farming – QANTAS with egg on their face
October 13th, 2012 by Warwick HughesOn September 10th, 2012 I posted – “Qantas makes announcements about buying carbon credits”. In that I drew attention to the entire scheme being far from set in concrete by saying. “This all sounds as though what QANTAS announced as a done deal – is still a work in progress.”
Have I been proved correct – here we are a month later and the ABC is reporting – “Outback carbon farming venture faces shake-up”.
Shake-up might be praising it – reads like a major change in direction to me – “…going back to school.” –
“…the board felt leadership “needed refreshing”.” –
“…the company is not planning to be a part of any similar carbon farming projects in the future.” – and for the last line –
“The value of those carbon credits … are next to nothing,” he said.
I have just noticed that the Govt/RM Williams deal goes back to mid-2011 too.
The odour of wasted taxpayers money just gets stronger.
Posted in Resources | 2 Comments »
October 13th, 2012 at 8:50 pm
Warwick,
from Bishop Hill,
“rather than just now partnering with C-Quest as ABC states, they’ve actually been linked for more than 3 years:
27 May 2009: Media Release: Announcement – R.M.Williams Agricultural Holdings
Australian Carbon Emission Reduction Initiatives & Biofuels
RMWAH has formed an exclusive partnership (within Australia) with one of the world’s leading carbon value adding and trading companies, C-Quest Capital (CQC). CQC has also made a substantial equity investment in RMWAH. The CQC team is headed by Ken Newcombe, ….who has over 30 years of experience in developing financially viable sustainable energy and plantation projects around the world. Mr Newcombe is responsible for building CQC’s positions in selected carbon assets for compliance and voluntary market emissions reductions world-wide. Prior to launching QCC in October 2008, Mr Newcombe was the Managing Director of Goldman Sachs’ Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities Division in New York, where he was responsible for carbon origination and sales in the US and Latin America.
11 March 2011: Stock Journal: Greener pastures beckon for RM Williams
THERE is plenty of talk at the moment about why Australia’s iconic bootmaker RM Williams is getting, well, too big for its boots.
The group is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s former right-hand man, Ken Cowley, who took control of the company in 2003 and has lofty ambitions to buy up large tracts of rural land around Australia, including La Belle station in the Northern Territory for more than $70 million, reports The Australian Financial Review…
Part of the company’s rural land push is clearly about carbon credit. The word is that Caltex Australia was looking to chip in about $400 million for RM Williams Agricultural Holdings in order to gain some of the carbon credits.”
Well, RMW got $9 million from the Govt. and is now free to make more money with C-Quest. Why is it that I wonder about this deal?
October 14th, 2012 at 7:53 am
I probably was not the only person with RM gear who was dismayed by their move. Mine all promptly ended up in the Vinnies bin.
It is worth noting that the majority of RM sales would probably be to the “Big Hat – No Cattle” crowd , who pretend in bars & on weekends but ride trains & broncin’ busses during the week. There may even be a few RM garments in the wardrobe of the odd GetUp supporter.