My theory on what's happened to bring about the drastic change...

My theory on what's happened to bring about the drastic change of plan is potential customers and partners from the EV industry and battery supply chain told Spinks the German pilot plant samples that had previously been prequalified weren't acceptable as a basis for either binding sales agreements or a strategic investment for the proposed 5ktpa Kwinana plant. It is one or more of the mooted EV manufacturers who have expressed interest who have dictated the need for a "new stage 1 product qualification facility" to be ready by mid next year. It will be much smaller than 5ktpa but much bigger than Christof Freys "pizza oven" pilot plant in Germany. I recall many years ago that Kibaren Resources were going to build a larger pilot plant but it just disappeared into the ether and here we are revisiting it at the request of VW or some other major player.

Epanko is now the main near term game of course as the technology of mining graphite and producing a concentrate is well proven and that's what the future strategic partner/s have instructed Spinks to do.

I wouldn't be surprised if a consortium is being formed comprised of an EV maker, a battery manufacturer, an anode manufacturer, SPG coating outfit, SPG producer (hopefully us) and one or more graphite miners. Aside from the mines, you'd think everything else would be close to the EV factory, i.e Kwinana no longer in the picture.