I wouldn;t beat up management too much on Malingunde, that...

I wouldn;t beat up management too much on Malingunde, that project looks too little too late imo. Graphite has been the battery anode of choice for 40 years and the market knows technology is moving on to silicon, metal and other better anode materials. Sure there are 4-5 years of graphite dominated batteries before the tipping point becomes an avalanche of new materials, but that doesn;t help a project like Malingunde which still needs to wait for a DFS, permitting, funding, build and ramp up etc before getting revenue from the graphite.

In the mean time existing players are going to ramp up production to fill the graphite demand and try to rake in as much profits before the anode tipping point happens. When graphite demand starts to drop existing players will likely try to make up for falling prices by increasing production even further to achieve economy of scales margin and hope to stay in the lower end if industry cost curve. Kills the industry ultimately but it's how capitalist game theory has played out time and again. IMHO of course, just that I cannot see the strategic rationale for anyone to risk investing lots of capital into Malingunde at this point in the game. Neither do I see any material over-lap for graphite from the rutile production. Different materials, in different part of the orebody, at different scales running through different plant processes.

I will own up to buying in at 46c immediately after the quarterly said they were listing in London and had a raft of news releases imminent this quarter (new MRE, Scoping Study etc). This is a news driven market after all and that is a lot of news to ramp on. Secondly, I like the idea of going to AIM's, the Pom's are famous for being mad punters paying way overs for any well told story in Africa. They love Africa, like they fondly riminess about the good ol days of colonial rule and forget about getting burned most of the time. Just look at what Pensana did taking that Angolan REE play to London...

Anyway, a trade is a trade but it doesn;t change my mind on fundamentals. I want to see the scoping study and details, see where the project is actually heading once I strip out the generous SS assumptions etc. I'm on record calling the 'hydro-mining' a no go because of the very high clay palid zone, this will be traditional dozer/truck operation. I'm going to call the saprolite zone a non-starter because grade is too low verses the cost to process high-clay, semi consolidated saprolite ore.

Noted that the recent aircore drilling campaign averaged ~10m per hole over the high grades Kasiya zones. The Palid zone clay averages 7-9m depth as per company presentations, unlikley to be much shallower over the deeper, high grade areas the SS is looking to mine. If mining the saprolite (which extends from 9-25m as per company notes) was a possibility then surely an extra couple of rods per hole is worth a few dollars while the aircore rig is on-site running. An average 10m per aircore hole indicates they are no longer looking at 'deep pits' (which makes sense form a footprint and economy of scale perspective) but focussing on maximum depth to base of pallid clay zone where the grade makes sense (and we know the grade is highly concentrated in the top 4-5m pedolith and mottled zone).

Fascinating project this one, still lots of questions to answer and risks regards valuation depending on the answers. I've sold some mid 60's and plan to sell the rest on MRE, SS pump in preparation for AIM's listing and assoc CR. Happy to wait and see what the SS says, otherwise the poms could run this anywhere (as could the Germans lol).

Good luck