Do you trust the Chinese? Would you bet your life savings on a binding offtake agreement with a Chinese company? I agree with you FOB mine price has not been agreed to and the FOB mine price an offtake partner is going to purchase at is the key to any agreement and the success or failure of the Jr. Graphite Mining Company.
As for 2 of the markets you mention: Aluminum Anodes I do not believe Natural graphite will replace Calcined Petroleum Coke any time soon. They only way is if Calcined Petroleum Coke is no longer available. As for steel/iron recarburisers this market is an extremely low margin market that uses all type of Carbon & Graphite and if SYR wants to target this market I wish them the best. SYR should find a better company to work with then Asmet (UK) Ltd. who has zero experience in selling recarbuisers.
Batteries is where all the future grow will come from until the battery industry finds and starts to use a better material then Graphite in future generation batteries. I have no idea how soon this will happen that graphite gets displaced.
As per you comment graphite mining is no longer an art. This tells me you no nothing about mining and the flotation process used in upgrading natural flake graphite ore to market purity. Have you ever worked in a graphite floatation factory? A lot of capital has been lost and wasted by companies that though graphite flotation was easy.
SYR has more over head of management then graphite companies with revenues of over 100 million Euros. They burn thru shareholders capital spending money as fast as I blink my eyes. If you call this good management we should agree to differ.
As for CAPEX I believe a private graphite mining company can build a realistic capacity graphite mine of 10,000 to 25,000 tons capacity and are building some as we speak for total CAPEX amounts considerable below SYR projected CAPEX value. So do you still feel SYR is a good investment?
Lowest production cost must be calculate on realistic capacity graphite mine. I do not believe SYR being realistic and if investment banks and others what to give them their capital they are free to do so. They can afford to loss big sums of capital.
MOU are not binging and if I were a potential investor I expect a take or pay contract and need to have the contract have a minimum FOB mine price. Otherwise is market prices fall below the FOB mine cost I have to close down or sell at a loss.
You and I have a much different understanding of the Natural Flake graphite market. I guess time will tell who is more correct. I prefer to only consider investing in low CAPEX high quality graphite mines with realistic capacity.
