Lenny, I’ve been on the dog & bone for the best part of the last...

Lenny, I’ve been on the dog & bone for the best part of the last day, to people all over the world in all sorts of word time zones. So here’s what I found out…

No ML, No POWER, No MOU, No PR - these 4 can be bundled together, because the problems all come from the same source. Straight from the DRC, I was told essentially that China is looking to control world supply of lithium; when Nige found the lithium mother load at Manono, the Chinese wanted to buy it for a pittance; AVZ had had a clear run in the DRC to this point, & decided to hang onto Manono & be properly rewarded for their discovery by mining it themselves; the Chinese then went to Plan B, which was to bribe officials in various DRC govt departments & instruments to stall the Manono project; yada yada yada, now AVZ finds itself in the position it’s in & the DRC are tied up in knots trying to untether themselves from their historic corrupt links with China.

No TIA - I rang CATH. One of the bosses there said that, before this whole China world domination of lithium thing took hold, they went into this TIA as a genuine regular Joe investor. As time went by, the boss of China (very influential over there) told them to stall the signing of the agreement while they tried to steal Manono through their people on the ground in the DRC. In case this plan failed, CATH were told to just hang around in the TIA to get whatever Manono crumbs they could pick up.

No LOCKE - I rang Locke. The bloke I spoke to there said their DD is complete & they’d like to invest $20 million to finance AVZ’s litigation (he said it’s a pretty sweet deal for them), but they’ve got a pretty good relationship with AVZ & are waiting just a little longer to see if AVZ actually needs the coin while they hang out for news on interim awards for damages in AVZ’s favour.

Hope this helps. My French $ Chinese is a little rusty but that’s the gist of it all. And no need to thank me.