@dbd25 I would say that management is very decent or at the very...

@dbd25 I would say that management is very decent or at the very least, competent. I have an interest a few junior minors and I would say they are one of the better management teams. Importantly they do what they say they are going to do and tend to do so in decent time frames. In addition they seem to be very good at striking deals and getting the interest of not only investors but also governments. I personally think the getting in front of governments, suppliers and customers as early in the journey as they have is an advantage that is overlooked. It is much easier to get environmental, community and regulatory approvals if you have already engaged with these stake holders years before the application goes in. The SA government is already very familiar with the project, as is the federal government (eg federal battery resources roadmap), this will add a lot of legitimacy to the future applications and hopefully (not guaranteed) fast track the relevant approvals. Plus the play to really emphasize that they will be the only spherical graphite producer outside of China is magnificent given the current geo politically situation and the importance of graphite going forward.

They have proactively engaged customers in order to get MOU's on the table as early as possible (first MOU was done in 2018 IIRC). They are also actively trying to drive these to binding offtakes ahead of time and might be at the point where they can get those binding offtakes signed shortly after the PFS is complete. This is really important as it will allow them to go from PFS to financing approval in a (hopefully) shorter amount of time.

They not only engaged Royal Dutch (Engineering) early but in doing so managed to snag a Dutch ECA (in principle) financing and got a $1m commitment from Royal Dutch to ensure that approvals are gained within a set time of application (1 year IIRC).

I think all of this is really going to come together when they try and tackle the hardest part of being a junior minor, which is going from "aye guys we have some pretty decent dirt over here" to actually having the money to start getting that dirt of the ground. Arriving in front of debt financiers with a project boasting strong economics, offtake agreements with multiple parties, Australian government support (both state and federal), Dutch government support, very reputable engineering partners and solid forward looking macro economic indicators will give them a really decent shot of getting some of that sweet, sweet debt financing.

That being said the above is pretty useless if the company runs out of cash, but management has raised enough cash to see them to the end of the DFS which, if everything goes according to plan will allow them to obtain financing or at the least push the SP up to support a cap raise.

Just my thoughts on what i have seen over the last 3 years.

More than happy to be wrong or for someone else to highlight what i have missed

DYOR