Ann: BlackEarth's JV with Metachem to produce Expandable Graphite, page-16

As I am fairly certain Metchem has NDA's in place with their end users to protect any pricing IP and cannot be divulged to the public, especially a third party marketing firm. A JV agreement does not circumvent an NDA and again, Benchmark takes public information and creates the materials. Direct customer interactions can provide pricing indications in a range formant without violating the spirit of an NDA or credibility of the supplier. The range has to be broad in scope to not create a conflict of interest with an end user.

As for as pricing for expanded or expandable graphite, Chinese suppliers provide pricing to the public domain without any supporting end user data. I deal with this on a regular basis and find that companies who quote Chinese supplier pricing data is far from reality an end user is paying. There are many factors that contribute to an end user price including volumes, grades, inventory management, INCOTERMS, Credit Terms, supply agreement metrics, etc.