General Discussion AGY, page-17198

Mate, I don’t think the contract price is related to China in any significant amount because they are so opaque and their wild swings in commodity prices makes having a baseline almost impossible. This is deliberate mind you because they always want to pay the minimum price possible. People need to realise specialist chemical/compound manufacturers (which is essentially what Puna is) need to have their product qualified by their customer. We have done that. We can then charge a premium because we have jumped through their hoops. How many other companies like VUL, LKE, LPD and LPI have done that? To my knowledge none of them have.

My hope is that we sign with a Japanese customer because they have a mutual benefit attitude to business and from my experience in manufacturing they are happy to pay a premium if you’re giving them a product that exactly meets their specs/quality levels. They are very respectful that their suppliers help them do their manufacturing/business well too.