lmb discussions

Hi All,
I have been reading the posts from the last days..

1)Sometimes just blown away by the mis-information. And I know this will continue. It is only when a solid offtake comes into play that you can really tell the "mis-informers" they are wrong. But usually if a stock is heading down they are telling you "I told you so" and if it is heading up or there is a positive announcement they are nowhere to be seen.
2)Really surprised by some of the posts especially personal attacks on on management at the company. trythree seems especially keen to take on a defamation case...The case by Meldex was actually struck out of court..
3) Trythree. Still trying to work out why you are so passionate about this. You only joined HC in December 2013 but have taken already a very aggressive position here. I just feel you have a motivation here that is not being shared. I might be wrong but I smell a motive.
So ends my rant.

Overall, I still say
1) Graphite usage is on the rise, as too is the usage of batteries.... I sit in many conferences around end use of batteries in a commercial / industrial end use and they can solve so many problems today. If a few open issues can be solved, then we expect much wider adoption in some of these applications.
a) Price point needs to drop. (for eStorage and to make eCar more attractive). This is why a switch to more natural graphite is extremely important as graphite makes up a large chunk of the battery. Other sources of Li etc would also be nice. If we can convert the other 50% synthetic graphite to natural in a growing industry then it will be very positive.
b) a Capacity / volume improvement would be great for confined applications.
c) Stability in fault conditions / heat management. Although in current applications this is being managed, any breakthrough here would be a great boost.

2) New uses for graphite are getting interesting.
a) SYR announcement on the offtake the other day for a new application (not really knew but commercially now a superior alternative) for Graphite "as a substitute for
petroleum coke, anthracite and other forms of carbon used to
manufacture aluminium cathode and anode blocks". Brilliant good work by those guys.. If all of the other alum. smelters switch to this, that will bring volume.
b) Graphene is just showing more and more promise everyday.
c) I saw an article last week re. a lab at Stamford was able to turn graphite into diamond through a simple process (rather then applying 150k atmospheres pressure to the graphite). Imagine the applications here. (But maybe time to pawn the wife's diamonds before the price drops out of the market :)
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/04/researchers-found-a-new-easy-way-to-turn-graphite-into-diamond/
d) I have seen countless other articles on possible used of graphite take SYR interesting offtake below.
3) China is reducing it supply of Graphite dramatically. SYR in their recent announcement. Given this, they are closing other facilities and they are stopping export of Graphite to retain own supplies. From SYR announcement.
"there is currently a shortage of high quality graphite in China as graphite production has been ceased in Shandong
Province due to environmental issues as hydrofluoric acid used to upgrade the graphite contaminated nearby water supplies (note Syrah does not need to use acids to upgrade its graphite to a high grade graphite concentrate). A substantial amount of the world’s high quality graphite was produced from Shandong Province. China is believed to consume about 40% of world graphite consumption (source:
Industrial Minerals data) and graphite is a critical material required in the steel industry. China accounts
for about 36% of world steel production (based on 2012 statistics) and the steel industry is one of the
main drivers to China’s economy."

So lets get back to the basics. If we can all agree on these
a) We expect demand to grow for Graphite in the coming years substancially.
b) We expect current sources (mainly China) to reduce supply in the coming years.


Now on LMB itself. There are a lot of graphite plays starting up out there. And I like more then just one (and have invested in the past in others). What I like about LMB in no particular order.
1) Both countries are very stable. (Australia and Korea (South))
2) McIntosh with its closeness to the coast and expected low cost to startup(source : based on presentations from LMB), will be in production latter this year with a low contaminants, high grade product that will find an offtake with Hengda Graphite (my opinion). I believe this graphite will be used for a variety of products and not all battery grade (my opinion)
2) Korean companies will, I believe, (source:my own opinion based on doing business in that country for over a decade), predominantly buy from a Korean mine if available.
3) The Korean graphite has been tested for battery grade in a real battery condition and not theoretically. It was also over 9 months which should have give a degradation curve and some interesting findings on stability etc (important). The discussions on fine grade, flake size, TGC etc are discussions and since there are so many opinions, my opinion is look for facts ie. a successful proof of concept (ie test) and then an offtake agreement with a credible battery or graphite supplier.
4) The management team for me is very motivated and is working hard to make things happen. The fact that there announcements are about every 2 weeks and have substantial information and progress in them (not marketing or regurgitating of old announcements) gives me a lot of faith in them. In terms of the comments by others about an incident in the past, Who cares. Who can go through their career history and say they have never made a wrong step or never faced an issue. What is important is what they are doing for this company now.
5) They are keeping us and the market very informed with roadshows, announcements etc.. I like transparency.
6) If I look around at the Top20, there are many familiar names who do their DD. In the latest placement and Top 20 published there was topping up not selling. (source multiple Top20 LMB publish)

So Do your Own Research, Make your own Decisions, This is not investment advice but my view on why I invested in this market and this company.