Azmar International disputed yesterday the claims that it would be getting a 97 percent share of the revenue arising from its proposed pozzolan mining on Mt. Pagan.<\/p>\n
The proposer, now named Azmar International Trading Co. CNMI, said that more than half of the money earned would in fact be spent on shipping.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 93-7 profit claim is absurd. The biggest portion goes to shipping expenses,\u201d said Azmar spokesman Don Farrel in a public comment period during yesterday\u2019s jampacked board meeting by the Marianas Public Lands Authority.<\/p>\n
In a presentation, Azmar said that 56.5 percent would be spent for shipping; 14 percent would go to the government, including a 7 percent royalty fee to MPLA; 15 percent for operating expenses; and 14.5 percent as revenue for Azmar.<\/p>\n
However, Peter J. Pangelinan Perez of Gualo Rai and San Francisco said in a letter to the Senate that Azmar\u2019s profit sharing proposal is \u201cextremely one-sided.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that, as demonstrated in a calculator posted on the website Chamorro.com, the deal is \u201ca disaster for the CNMI.\u201d For instance, he said that at a sales of $40 and a production cost of $30, the CNMI would get $632 million while Azmar would get $1.4 billion. This is based on a 7 percent royalty fee, 5 percent BGR tax and other fees for land lease.<\/p>\n
He said that when the price is $70 and the cost is $30, the CNMI gets $1.3 billion and Azmar gets $6.6 billion. At a production cost of $10, the CNMI gets $1.5 billion and Azmar gets $10.5 billion, and so on.<\/p>\n
Chamorro.com, run by Chamorros in San Francisco, California, said the proposal is flawed because \u201cthe CNMI’s share is always the same, 7 percent, no matter what the cost of production is, and after covering the cost of production, Azmar always gets 93 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Association of Northern Islands Residents has also warned the MPLA against rushing into any mining deal. The group cited a report that more than 200 million tons of high-grade pozzolan are on Pagan, believed to be worth $45 to $70 per ton at today\u2019s prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one knows the true market value,\u201d said the group, but noted that \u201cthis is not a matter of a few thousand dollars. This is potentially a matter of billions of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his part, Farrell, who attended the meeting with Azmar president Kenneth Moore and other local representatives, said that Azmar\u2019s proposal has \u201cexcellent terms for both sides.\u201d <\/p>\n
He cited that prices for finished Portland cement is $53 per ton. \u201cAnd we know that there is no established [international] market for pozzolan,\u201d said Farrell.<\/p>\n
He said the company has the local community in mind ever since it made the proposal.<\/p>\n
He said that Azmar\u2019s original plan called for Pagan resettlement and pozzolan mining development project, which involved a $3.5 million budget for the construction of basic infrastructure in the area. The mining project, he said, would employ only local and U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n
Farrell said Azmar is asking for a two-year mining permit \u201cto begin the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the project would require some 5,200 employees during the first six months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Azmar International disputed yesterday the claims that it would be getting a 97 percent share of the revenue arising from its proposed pozzolan mining on Mt. Pagan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}