synthetic graphite, page-13

ok so I have done a lot of reading this weekend and a common theme is that people think that our mega re-rate is waiting on confirmation on some kind of sales agreement (official offtake agreement or just word on who will take our product in any form of arrangement). Now after reading a lot about IIM and PAK, we have a common chairman in WG, they have a product that is due to roll out over the next couple of months and they have not yet said who will be supplying their graphite / graphene (unless I missed this). And here is little old us who have said we will be starting to extract graphite by the end of this month, but have not mentioned who might buy it. Surely it is a given that we will supply PAK / IIM and therefore surely it is a given that our rerate commences very very soon. And I'm sure PAK are not the only ones we are talking to.

On another note, the geofabric industry that IIM are getting into is a huge market. I am a civil engineer who specialises in water (predominantly stormwater design, including retarding basins) and I can tell you that if we start supplying PAK / IIM and they in-turn go global with their technology (as they are talking about) then IIM will fly. Geofabrics Australasia are THE company when it comes to geofabs in Oz, so I have no doubts as to what they can do. Just consider that recent tailings mine disaster in Brazil where 19 people tragically died, hundreds were displaced and the environmental ramifications will be felt for years. Now imagine that there was a product that could sense as soon as a small leak commenced and potentially prevent such an event occurring, or at least enable a much longer timeframe to evacuate people downstream of the dam. This product will become the industry standard. I have heard damages numbers of between $3-7 billion being thrown around as being payable by Samarco (half by BHP) for the incident so how much would mining companies be prepared to pay to prevent such an event happening again ? Potentially very lucrative for us if we supply the raw product.

Now I am not trying to cross promote and I don't own any PAK (never had) but this leads me to my next point / question. Who stands to make the most bang for their buck in this arrangement - FGR by supplying the raw material (assuming we do), or PAK / IIM as the manufacturer of the final product. I honestly don't know the answer, which is why I am putting it out there. My gut feeling is that if the graphene industry is going to get as big as people are speculating then if we have control over most of the supply of the raw material (hence the reason for our huge land holdings in SL) then we should be in the driver's seat on future pricing and will be exposed to making $$$ out of every single potential final product created using graphene, whereas IIM will only be a small (albeit highly lucrative) part of the graphene revolution depending on how many different products they end up producing.

The other thing I have read a lot is that people agree that graphene will become a massive thing, but that it is years away from being commercially used and is currently just for lab rats wearing white coats. My research tells me that graphene will initially start entering our lives by 'improving' existing things that we already have / use (already geofabrics, tyres, beds etc etc etc) and over time will be used to arrive at new innovations that are not currently possible (or even thought of yet) using existing technology / materials - this is when the graphene market will start to move exponentially imo, but in the interim my reading tells me that graphene is not some future pipedream and it IS starting to happen right now, all over the world.

Well that is my 2c worth after hours of researching while the weekedn weather is average. I would love to hear other people's thoughts.