Crumbed, while I like the sentiment of increasing volumes, the...

Crumbed, while I like the sentiment of increasing volumes, the reason that other potential graphite producers are going to struggle is because they chased volume from Day 1. Bigger is best, they said (or implied).

Our guys have shown that they won't be subject to the whims of the market in announcing unacheivable targets. They are in close communications with genuine buyers (and contrary to popular opinion, there aren't actually a massive amount of buyers out there). They set a target of 20 ktpa initially, and got a sufficient size offtake to get finance for it (the EGT). They only increased the production target to 40 ktpa once they had a strong indication that they could sell the additional volume, and subsequently announced a second genuine, European (read, non-Chinese) off-take agreement (with ThyssenKrupp).

If they get indication that buyers want more, then they will increase the production target, but it would have to be a really strong deal to justify starting the finance process again (which they would have to do if they suddenly want to increase the loan amount and have a different payback cashflow).

Big production targets can attract massive attention (think TON), but I'd much rather have a stake in something that has an actual realistic chance of getting into business. If you don't get the process right, and rush straight into something, you end up with other fiasco's like VXL. Let the buyers guide the targets, and spend lots of time (which KNL have) on ensuring that the met results are to the buyer's satisfactions, and spend time on working out that the actual physical mining process is going to be achievable. Again, VXL is an example of what not to do. In this regard, having John Park's previous input into the physical process (as one of the few people on a graphite board that actually had graphite mining experience) was invaluable, prior to his unfortunate passing this year. Having Christoph Frey involved is a definite fillip for KNL's story, and well done to Spinks and Co in that regard.

Slow and steady is the way to go, people. 2016 is still going to throw up some curly situations as the market does it's thing, but I'm confident in making 1 prediction: KNL will still have threads on HC in years to come, because it will be a genuine business, long after a number of other graphite explorers have ceased to be graphite explorers, and many of those will only exist as shells to vend in other "new flavours", like if uranium or rare earths takes back off again.

Merry XMas to all, and to all a good night.