Why the increase?, page-63

Mainholm is right, in that there will be peaks and troughs of demand, which will probably relate more to shipping availability than to production. But graphite movement to port may not be much affected, for the following reasons.

My figures for truck movements assumed 300 days per year, not 365, so there is some slack there. An eight-hour round trip should make two trips per day fairly straightforward, meaning about one truck leaving Balama per half-hour, which can hardly be considered heavy traffic. I did mention that figure was for SYR only. If we were to assume that TON will ship the same volume, then we should double that rate of movements - still a low figure.

The last 30-odd kilometres of gravel road to Balama is being sealed now, meaning that there will be a bitumen road from mine to port, for both Pemba and Nicala. I have not heard what is planned by TON, but I assume the same situation will apply. An all-weather, bitumen road to port, combined with the relatively low frequency of vehicle movements, should mean that the wet season will not materially interfere (but the chance of roads being cut by flooding cannot be ruled out).

MTA? Other wannabees? Who knows? Even TON have several steps before a mine can be developed. Whoever gets going early is likely to want to tie up facilities, so those late to the party may find the going tough.

Vanadium will have little impact on shipping requirements. Shipped at 98%+ V2O5, which is what SYR are planning, vanadium tonnage is between one and two percent of graphite tonnage. That's much less than the likely errors in our guesses for graphite! I can't see any obvious reason why TON vanadium movements would be significantly higher.

Cheers, Prime1