Meerkat, if your implication is that I haven't discussed anything about a six month JV extension as I am ignoring it, then that implication is patently incorrect. I have posted numerous times, at length, on the Merelani negotiations, and other aspects of the company, both positive and negative.
But to answer that specific point for you, suffice to say, nothing with a government gets done quickly. Traders who think that a company can just turn around a legally binding agreement within a matter of weeks are kidding themselves. The Australian government hasn't even passed it's full budget yet, many months after it's release, and after the new financial year has already started, so I'm not concerned yet about the length of time that the Tanz government may be taking to investigate and ensure all i's are dotted and t's are crossed. The presence of the Tanzanian President and First Lady at Kibaran's Epanko deposit last week would be a good indication that there is a public working relationship, at the very least (and which was the subject of my original post, not Merelani, so perhaps you could have addressed the subject matter of the initial post instead of side-tracking to your chosen downramp subject?). Perhaps you were one of the traders posting late last year that Kibaran sales MOU was worthless, as it took 5 months to go from a non-binding-MOU to a binding-off-take. All those posters were wrong then too. Incidentally, it would be nice for some of those posters to publicly acknowledge they were wrong, but that's not how it works with posters and their "in my opinion", is it Meerkat?
To actually address some of the points you have made to us inferior idiots, I note the following:
- Any discussion confusing gemstone mining and graphite mining is ill thought out, and are about as related as saying we shouldn't extend our house because the sun will explode in 6 million years time. Yes, they are in the same area when looked at from a topographical map, but that is the only similarity. The gemstones are at considerable depth (there are some good youtube clips of visits to the Merlani gem mines), which is a different depth to the near-surface graphite deposit. And even if they were in the same depth, no illegal miner is going to take away a tonne (do you realise how big a tonne is to carry in your pockets?) of graphite to sell down at the local co-op for less than $2,000.
- If you have done your homework, you will have seen a previous post that I put up which had links to 2 geo reports on Merelani. One of them had to be purchased, but it was well worth the $39.95 given the size of my holding, but might not be worthwhile for you given you're "cleared out" and have no holding and have more intention to post rather than invest. Merelani has a flake distribution that is better than Epanko. Epanko had traders seek us out (not the other way around) to sign up an off-take agreement, with discussions for a second. In this global environment with a multitude of graphite wannabees out there, with buyers still knocking on our door to secure our graphite, and with the potential to add a second mine to our company, with an even better product than our world class quality at Epanko, are you seriously suggesting that the best course for management is to "forgedaboudit" in regards to Merelani? You would make a lonely voice at any company board in Australia if that was the case. By the way, the co-author of one of the two geo reports I mentioned? Mr John Park. And no, it's not someone with the same name. Do you not think he would know exactly why it's such a game changer for Kibaran?
- Your focus on the timeframe ignores a lot of work that has been going on behind the scenes, for a long time. From my discussions with management, the discussions about Merelani started a couple of years ago. That's years, not months. A 3 month extension to a 3 month initial MOU can seem lengthy at superficial glance, but it starts looking a lot less spooky when you consider that the negotiations have been happening behind the scenes for years. And when you highlight the fact that Richland (the Tanz govt's own partner) has already agreed to our terms in writing, perhaps, like the off-take extension last year, it's just an acknowledgement that these things can take time.
- You said "KNL needs to clarify these issues .." in relation to the illegal mining, which is a silly point to make. Richland may need to clarify things in regards to their gemstone operations, but KNL don't need to clarify that illegal graphite mining is not a concern for our planned graphite operations.
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