Very valuable information about EVSI, Ron, thanks for your efforts. With all the off-road sales, I can see how GRNO off-road diesel would be especially valuable to them. However, some questions do remain, which I will ask in case some of them cropped up.
1) You indicate that EVSI (through the JV) is buying 1 unit ("the unit"), and though they want to expand their diesel business, nothing you said suggests that they are even contemplating how to handle an additional 125 million gallons or so as a result of processing 175 million gallons or so of waste oil--indeed you mention only their wanting to find a better way to use the waste oil they are currently collecting. Did you get the sense that they are envisioning expanding this business across the entire LA-OK-TX area eventually, or are they really interested in only one processor serving their needs in their current marketing area?
2) I find particularly intriguing the fact that the St of TX charges an $0.08 per gallon fee to manage the collection (and disposal, I presume) of waste oil. I wonder how much support GRNO and its allies could get from the state by, in effect, offering to take that whole problem off its hands?
3) Since you're looking at EVSI from an investment standpoint as well, I wonder if you talked about the dismal history of their share price--came public in July 1993 @$12.50, immediately started dropping, and has drifted lower ever since, bouncing off $4 several times over the last two years before dropping sharply to $3 this spring, less than 1/2 of their supposed book value (there's always a question in these cases about how assets are valued). Why? Normally, I would suppose a long history of dismal earnings, and therefore question the competence of management (particularly in later generations of family businesses). Is that the case here?
Two other matters:
4) Regarding your implications that chartists have no idea what's going on with a stock, I would remind you of the old tale of the blind men and the elephant--what constitutes the reality of the elephant depends on which part of it you're engaged with. Once again, chartists deal with the relationship between price and supply/demand. If 100,000 shares are offered for sale of a stock whose average daily volume is 30,000, you can bet the family farm that price weakness will be a consequence--excess supply will drive down price until demand rises to absorb the supply. Like the estate sellers, price/supply evaluators don't look at WHY supply should increase in a stock with such promising long-term prospects. Vice versa is also true, of course--excess demand (devoutly to be wished, here) will drive price up. No demand, no price rise, no matter what the story. Good chart readers (like TAMark) can estimate where turning points are between oversupply/overdemand and estimate how long one of these trends will continue in order to attain balance (where we seem to be at the moment), or to reach a point where the opposite condition predominates. Even if you are primarily a fundamentalist in evaluating and buying/holding stocks, if you like to buy in the vicinity of price bottoms and sell in the vicinity of price tops, you need to pay some attention to the part of the elephant that concerns these relationships between supply and price.
5) An anecdote: I worked in a refinery one summer when I was in college, and remember seeing 13 different brand name trucks and who knows how many independents all lining up under the same fuel pump one day. Ever since, I have always bought gas strictly on a price basis.
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