Thanks for sharing Ten, I appreciate you posting these replies...

Thanks for sharing Ten, I appreciate you posting these replies from DC.

In his reply to you on 26 April, he conceded the challenges in managing the risk of making FID at that stage given the current volatility in graphite prices. He expected that this risk would be managed by an increase in government policies supporting ex-China graphite through loans/grants, tariffs and requirements for ex-China supply.

Since then, all of those things have happened. We have seen the revision of our $185m loan facility, tariffs on natural/synthetic graphite, and the implementation of the IRA/CRMA/FMIAA.

Yesterday, he conceded that “we need to ensure we don’t expose ourselves to too much risk while the market remains volatile” and to “avoid over-leveraging”.

However, he mentions that “we have an additional wildcard – public policy to encourage non-Chinese supply. This works in our favour and may provide the means for us to balance the risks on Chinese price volatility.”

Here, he is referring to the risk of taking on too much debt as he mentioned in his reply to you on 18 March. This risk would be managed by issuing equity to offtake partners.

We are seeing that the increase in government policy is encouraging investment in ex-China graphite producers. Look no further than the billions of dollars that will be invested by the South Korean government to diversify its graphite supply chains.

I wonder where RNU fits in these plans?

We are left to ponder what the “revised terms” and “commercial sensitivities” mentioned in the budget is referring to, however it is clear to me where this is going.