Ann: Kasiya - Optmised PFS Results, page-2

It is amazing how many new projects rely on Benchmark or Fastmarkets, neither of which have direct graphite industry field sales or commercial sales experience and any pricing either firm provides is ONLY Chinese based / obtained and none of the pricing inputs are accurate, nor in line with over graphite powder industry.

Obviously the PFS report focuses mainly on EV of which there are many changes globally in the battery industry taking place and begs the questions, why is it both Benchmark and Fastmarkets continue to push a hyper graphite powder shortage narrative, yet of all the new graphite projects looking to come on line have not been debt financed and the equity market in general has been advisedly affected by SYR during the multiple equity raises it secured.

Any natural graphite projects that were debt financed will eventually face or are in administration (WKT) as the loan / payback terms are unrealistic for the natural graphite industry as debt financiers apply bulk industrial mineral metrics. These bulk industrial minerals metrics do not apply to the natural graphite industry as all graphite powders have to be qualified and normally takes 3 - 5 years to reach 50% to 70% qualified sales / shipments for a 25,000 Mt facility.

Natural graphite supplies are in equilibrium with demand and if the hyper demand narrative was true, why have the graphite powder deficit goal posts been moved back every year since 2013 and as of end of 2024, the goal post have been moved yet again which challenges the credibility of the so-called market experts who in essence demonstrate their hubris? The only EV growth being parroted by all is in China where 90% of the growth takes place and is government mandated. The ROW EV growth is slowing, and subsidies are being retracted with most major car producers losing US$ billions on EV's. These are the market facts and not an opinion.

Yet, the inaccurate graphite powder market and pricing intelligence information will continue providing a false narrative / false hope and as always, we can revisit in 1 year to compare notes.