Guys, re the Frankfurt listing, my original advice that I received (and posted a long time ago) was that Frankfurt action was facilitated by a German broker, on a T+5. Once they have their orders, those orders are then supposed to come through the ASX normal market (where it's obviously T+3). The +2 days difference between the settlements is supposed to be more than sufficient to account for time difference and placing orders. My understanding is that the overnight Frankfurt orders are supposed to go into the market immediately here, but I've been watching on some of the larger Frankfurt volume days, and they don't all flow through straight away here.
I can't remember the specific day, but there was a day when Frankfurt had something like 1 million shares traded (I assume after the release of a broker report or something), and on that day they forced the ASX to open higher, and stay higher, so it's extremely possible for them to drive the ASX, if (and it's a big if) there is sufficient volume to outweigh any counter sentiment in our market. Grenede's point is valid though, in that usually there is next to no volume from Frankfurt, so they don't affect the price. If Frankfurt closed up 10c on no news, and with small volume (I'm being purposely ridiculous), while technically our price will rise, it will be instantly offset in our pre-open, and any potential gain is more than offset by a larger seller. Of course, the reverse is also true, if that situation arises. Hopefully see a bit more price leading from Frankfurt after the LOI becomes binding.
Rean, I don't (and to my knowledge, the company doesn't) anticipate any similarity between frustrated Merelani process with STAMICO and the Epanko approvals. Merelani is a hot potato for the Tanzanians, due to non-graphite reasons (i.e. Tanzanite), and they will dither indefinitely rather than make a potentially wrong decision that might affect their national pride. While African's notoriously take their sweet ar$e time with everything, I don't imagine there will be any additional imposts of time (apart from usual) as far as Epanko approvals are concerned. They want to see it happen, and are politically aligned behind Kibaran, otherwise the President and First Lady would not have spent a day with the guys at Mahenge when they opened a school and Kibaran donated some equipment. Part of the reason that Epanko is currently KNL's flagship project, even though it's metallurgy is not as good as Merelani (although still a world class deposit in terms of quality compared to all other graphite peers, with possible exception of MNS), is that Epanko is 100% within KNL's control, and the wider Merelani region isn't. Rather than sit on their hands and wait for Merelani ducks to all line up, they are forging ahead with a first mine, and then pursuing a two mine strategy. Personally, I like it. While the capex costs are potentially higher by building two separate mines, the increased safety that comes from having two operational plants (i.e. if one needs to close temporarily) more than makes up for it, in my view.
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