So there’s increased “customer” interest in our UHP Graphite...

So there’s increased “customer” interest in our UHP Graphite product. That’s great, marvellous. Hardly warrants an ASX announcement though. We’ve supplied said new mystery customer with a sample and wait for their evaluation. Hope you’re all patient out there. Recent experience says such evaluations take 6 months plus at an absolute minimum as evidenced by the 113 tons of graphite sent to mystery customer 1 at the end of last year. Admittedly this was not finished product so it warrants extra time to process but you can bet at least half of us will have had another birthday before a hopeful positive result comes from mystery customer 2, the one we just supplied with a sample of finished product. We’re now in the process of making more UHP Graphite to give out in VRC show bags to facilitate this newfound customer interest.

Back on the 24^th of April when “Volt Secures Funding”, the terms for the loan of a million bucks was maturity and payback would be due four months from execution date. We don’t know when that was but let’s say cheque was cashed at the end of April as we needed money asap which puts maturity date at the end of next month, 6 short weeks from now. Our Chairman stressed that VRC intends to repay this loan on or before the maturity date and has no intention of utilising the loan extension terms. Sounds great, very confident and obviously tying in with a favourable outcome of the timetable of grants to be issued by Uncle Sam.

Then out of the blue, “Volt Secures Funding” (there’s that dodgy title again) once more on the 2^nd of this month to the tune of 250k thanks to 3 out of 4 of our largest shareholders with a possibility of rounding it out to 500k. Is this 250k the additional cost of making more show bags or did we just plough through the $1m quicker than anticipated before Uncle Sam hopefully comes good? Keep in mind that the Minister for Minerals in Tanzania has proclaimed to all and sundry that we’re going mining for which we still need 40 million US bucks for although to my knowledge no flurry of buckets and spades have hit Bunyu yet apart from what was needed to extract the 113 tons late last year. Shovels appear to have been put back in the shed pretty much since then.

I have no doubt that the three who have dug deep into their collective pockets yet again especially he of the digested hat (yes I haven’t forgotten) were given solid reasons and assurances as to why they should advance more money to the VRC coffers and I’m sure it was not just because of “increased customer interest”. I am however not suggesting for a second that they are or have been privy to information not available to the rest of us. The fact that they did dig in gives me some solace as I’m sure they didn’t do it as a sheer punt on the hope of funding success and I mean the real funding, not these short-term loans.

A week and a half to go until the next compulsory quarterly where hopefully we may learn where we stand at what will be quite a critical juncture. I completely understand all the issues of the graphite market which so many companies especially us have gone through but “progressing well” and “advanced negotiations” etc. will definitely not cut it because if nothing changes within say the next 6 weeks, it will be exceptionally difficult to raise more money.

Pardon my sometimes facetiousness and rantings and I’m certainly not trying to be the prophet of doom as I believe we will ultimately somehow be successful but as shareholders we really need some comprehensive detail as to where we stand in the upcoming 4C. With so many of us being so deep in the red for so long, it’s the least we can expect. I’ll shut up for a while now but best of luck to all of us in the meantime.