Baytex Energy Corp. Message Board

Wondering how this will be covered at the shareholder's meeting. Sure some of it is in flux now (and even court dependent) but it's not clear what form the Chinese partnership is taking and it appears a EU plant is key for plans regardless of additional manufacturing capabilities elsewhere. Really need clarity here soon. Seems from what we can guess: both Wacker and MBLX are planning production elsewhere unless this can be solved soon. Local labor is owed money but probably does not want to lose all jobs and likely would support a plan starting up the factories. Wacker and MBLX could be complimentary if this could plant be solved quickly. Folks are probably happy about that oncept but I bet it is dependent on each working together to fill plant capacity here and may not be as logical a relationship if each are scrambling for other facilities.

If there are hints this might be on pace for a solution, MBLX shares should benefit going into the shareholders meeting. If not, the shares are dependent on new supply from China or finding cash and executing a different plan for production.

Eno could still prove me wrong on this but I still think the best course of action was going after industrial chem specific production first (even if less efficient or less flexible than diversified production capabilities) as any profitable business is a game changer for the stock.

Sentiment: Strong Buy

Given the timing of the shareholder's meeting, I'm assuming the more interesting details come out then. It seems from Google translations that there is a May 15 court deadline for Antibioticos to get their #$%$ together. Shareholder meeting is on May 30th. Given Eno's praise of the workers and comments that they can't work with current Antibioticos ownership, I'm assuming they have some hope to work with post May 15 liquidation ownership or be part of that. Obviously I don't know how they would raise the money to do that or if they would merge/JV with Wacker to accomplish it. Still looks like a busy week.

Also of note in the call, it seems switchgrass is their preferred industrial chem crop? Possibly I have this wrong. Can't imagine a biomass power plant is cheap or quick (including approvals) to build for the waste so I am curious who they would partner with to get this done.

Happy to hear they sold out one old line. Seems like backlog should make hitting q2 numbers easy enough depending on April sales but hitting numbers is no longer acceptable due to cash position. They'll need enough backlog generated in Q2 that it's obvious they'll be solid growth in q3. Hoping that can be done on existing inventory.

A lot to go over during the shareholder's meeting.

Sentiment: Strong Buy

Possibly this was meant as part of your special brand of sarcasm but mblx has a std. fiscal year. The quarter ended at the end of March. If it was part of your effort to be funny, sorry. It just seems more like you might be genuinely factually ignorant when you tried to make a funny and it would be a shame if others thought you had any value to your posting.

Sentiment: Strong Buy

Wackier has been interesting. I could see them taking controlling interest in Leon with he right agreement with labor. But the TN plant is also interesting especially if hybrid PVC or industrial chems prove to meet expectations. MBLX will need to produce in volume would heir claims be correct. A bigger partner than Anibioticos will be needed so if that transitions to a bigger player I'm happy.

Still not certain about what to make of Chinese partner. Could be leverage or could be an attempt to look for low cost manufacturing to make things like ag film possible.

Sentiment: Strong Buy

I feel there was a lot of "get this done quickly or we'll strengthen our relationship with others" in Eno's response. Possibly Tianjin is a natural partner for the more cost sensitive plays (eg ag film) but I bet Eno wants Antibioticos solved for EU sales ASAP. Betting the annual sales meeting and Q1 meeting are on the later side of normal scheduling to make room for developments here.

Very curious how the Q on Q sales growth goes from Q4 to Q1. It would be nice to see MBLX needs a producer online quickly. Sounds like acquisition or partnership with Antibioticos is possible for Wacker(or other) and that should this happen the path to production could be quick. Show me more demand for the product and I'll be very optimistic.

At this moment sacrificing a industrial chemicals specific plant to build something with more universal MBLX needs seems to be a huge mistake but there is still a little room to turn this around.

Sentiment: Strong Buy

My concern is the chem business could have been realized by now but they are pursuing a holistic approach with the Antibioticos plant. It made sense in a vacuum but not in the light of their cash position. In short, I think they need to get to a profitable business somewhere quickly. Do that and money to expand elsewhere should be easy to get.

I do think the $2 mark set by Jefferies makes sense. The financial restructuring at Antibioticos does cloud the value of the MBLX IP.

The Tianjin thing seems to make a lot of sense now. MBLX appears to not have production capabilities from their demo plant to meet the future needs of even current clients. 33% q on q growth may not continue in short term due to some of the sales likely being EOY in nature but I could see something like the ball horticulture usage grow quickly and possibly be a natural place where the Tianjin production could make a big difference.

Annual shareholders meeting and Q1 call should be interesting. A lot to answer to related to Antibioticos.

Sentiment: Strong Buy

To be fair, the last time I bought was at $1.18. IlovePelosi said the exact same thing he said above...except he said a lot more of it. If you listened to him you missed a double opportunity or worse...you shorted. Again, this is the last time we spoke of the stock.

Each time since it's taken some drop, he's popped up and the stock has rebounded. Hopefully today is more of the same.

As for tomorrow, I don't know what to make of the call. My logic for buying is that I assume MBLX must be able to announce a production date by the Q1 call. When that date is makes a big difference but at a minimum they need to be able to stick their necks out for analysts.

My expectations for the EOY call tomorrow are now higher due to the lateness of the scheduling. Though I'm betting they did this due to needing to figure out fluid issues in Spain between Wacker, labor, and Antibioticos...I still have light hope they will give more specific guidance. However, historically this has not been something they do much of and with the lawsuits not being settled it is unknown what they can say.

On a different track...I don't get the logic of say antibioticos is a bad choice. If there is a profitable market for mirel (the true question that will define the winning and losing share positions) then why not Antibioticos? MBLX absolutely needed facilities that were there, required little tailoring, and weren't being used for other things. It appears Antibioticos needs MBLX to be a success as well. And if Antibioticos can't financially make it to production and is bought out by a larger German company with interests in the sector...where is the harm there? Good argument for the technology quickly expanding and a good argument for localized smaller production vs intentions with Clinton plant.

Sentiment: Strong Buy

I'm not certain why Yahoo purged my previous response. I did not attack ilp to the best of my knowledge. Possibly they didn't like the link to SEC MBLX annual filings. In any event, there was no "delay". The annual filing has not been moved back but is towards the end of when MBLX normally files this report. (Past reports have been around Mar 12 but one was done a few days later than this one...and in the past there has been no correlation to the timing of the report and the tone of its content.)

In the case of this one, I can speculate on a lot of positive and negative reasons for releasing late in the report cycle. To me, the most office justification would be they want as much window as possible to forecast the start of production in Spain. I think this level of detail is demanded by the analysts now.

But there are other reasons as well on the positive side one could come up with which have been hinted to in past calls or are natural to discuss now. Possibly the investor lawsuit is close to settlement. Possibly the industrial chems group has a new partner. Possibly the German group working with Antibioticos has interest in MBLX. Possibly there is just a big study on one of their crop sectors about to be published. Or possibly they just wanted an early week conference call and this happened to be best for their schedule.

In any event, if they aren't missing a SEC reporting deadline I don't care too much about the timing of the call. Historically there is little tying that to what they release.

Sentiment: Strong Buy

I haven't followed who is buying that closely. Up until the last few trading sessions the rise was without big volume. I am happy the price is out of the delisting area and that alone could cause some the shorts to ponder leaving. If memory serves at all, $3 is an interesting point as the security becomes marginable to most brokerages. I think $5 and $10 are the points where mutual fund rules might let them buy into it but those are out of immediate dreams. But I could see the stock jump some if it threatens $3.

As for needing more cash, I guess that depends on their success with the Spain launch, the type of partnership they have in mind for their businesses, and how close each of the businesses are to launching. For example, if they got to the point soon where they thought they could profitably grow PHA in switch grass and use the remainder as biomass for energy generation or ethanol production (should the technology get there) I bet this would be a hugely expensive project. I don't know how they could get good terms with a partner who would be bearing the financial risk without a success story to point to. The Clinton ADM story is just too blatant. But with a history of success in Spain their negotiating position changes. Another possibility is using warrants to share the end gains a bit if it is obvious a successful plant would be a game changer. In any event, yes I do not like their cash position but am not overly worried about it until it impacts the odds of success in Spain. But I'm an outsider. For all I know if they had another $100M lying around they already would have launched a successful industrial chems business and therefore the cash situation was a far bigger problem than I guessed.

In any event, I am looking forward to hearing what was up and moved this stock. Given how much it has outperformed the markets as a whole over the last week+ it does smell like there is something more brewing than just shorts having a tough time exiting easily. Hopefully there is a meaningful development behind this.

Sentiment: Strong Buy

Still here. Read the board a lot. Not much to say though. In general I think something is up. But my reason for buying a lot more at 1.18 was only accidentally a great choice. On the easily defensible side...the stock was at or below cash, burn rate was announced for Spain and low. Seemed (seems) pretty obvious that if they could turn the Antibioticos relationship into a profitable business the stock would no longer have bankrupcy in the calculations of marketcap. At that point stock should be valued at some multiple of cash due to their other possible business lines. The part that I blew was an assumption that short holders would take profits with the stock at or below cash and the taxation about to change on capital gains. There was no short cover until management showed faith in the company by buying more risk to its future.

With respect to this current run, it smells like something is up. But I have no idea what that might be and don't want to suggest buying on that guess. If I had to wager I would say good news on either the lawsuits or more likely antibioticos related business is leaking before the annual call. It could be as simple as some were betting on de-listing from Nasdaq and that now seems less likely. But I don't recommend buying on that sort of rumor. In long based on their possible lines of business and an assumption that being profitable even in a smaller initial line of Mirel through production is Spain would be a huge game changer in the price of the stock. Furthermore, it's nice that there are a lot of shorts to squeeze should fundamentally changing news be released.

Sentiment: Strong Buy