I guess time will tell. I started following the story when DF...

I guess time will tell. I started following the story when DF got involved in an executive capacity. My understanding is that the original MD was taking the company and project into a high risk regime by looking to produce a spherical graphite product instead of the far simpler flake graphite concentrate. For a junior company, identifying, acquiring and then conceptualising the project in what was apparently about 2 years, I think they were doing a good job - but it was a mis-step to complicate the project configuration introduce more CAPEX and funding hurdles into the equation, not to mention the significantly higher technical risk.

It goes back to what I said above - Q: how do you blow up a company with a weak balance sheet (like BAT) ? A: you put the thing into a high technical and operating risk regime and have a tight and inflexible financing position. Operational issues arise (as they always do, even small ones) and operating margins come under pressure and the financiers end up owning the asset. Shareholders get zero or a couple of cents in the dollar.

Keeping things simple works well, especially in Africa and especially for a junior company without any construction or operating background. I think DF made a good call to dumb the project configuration down. Much, much easier to mine it, concentrate it and sell it.

The mineral resource/reserve at the project is huge - so there is more than enough time to get involved with exotic processes and bring in the value add downstream processing at a later date. If they got the thing build and operated for a few years, then they will have paid back the debt, developed operating skills, developed in-country relationships and supply chain/product logistics and could be in a position to organically fund such a downstream processing expansion.

That's why I am interested in the story - huge resource base, good forward demand fundamentals, scaleable project configuration and value add opportunities. I see they also announced a vanadium resource recently - don't know too much about that or the market, but could be another string to the bow for the company.

But the main game is the graphite story and as we are all aware, the capital requirements and the financing solution.