"agreed was a BAD choice of words on my part Wilf.The annmnt...

"agreed was a BAD choice of words on my part Wilf.

The annmnt states

"The letters of intent set out the framework and the commercial terms which will be incorporated into the offtake agreements......."

DK I think rightly mentions that nothing can be done re the signing of offtakes until they have the exploitation license which they now thankfully have.The exploitation license is basically a license of ownership of the mine hence its importance in the approval of all things legal/financial with regards to Perkoa.

What one has to appreciate is that even though the ar$e end has dropped out of the Zn price it does little to change the current lack of concentrate supply to the likes of Xstrata.These are big smeltering companies that are lacking consistent concentrate supply.This is evidenced by the recent mention by ZFX that they fully expect to exceed 2006 prices by a substantial margin due to the concentrate tightness in the market.Its one thing to be an end user of Zn and its another to be a Zn metal producer.Until the larger concentrate suppliers can ramp up their production or come up with new mines the concentrate situation will remain tight which can only translate to a good concentrate price.Good for the miners,perhaps not for the desperate smelters.

Sure there may be some flow down in the spot market price but these guys arnt looking at a day to day price for their concentrate.They are looking at a fixed price for a year minimum which is probably renegotiated at the end of the year and they MUST lock this supply in which means they will have to pay an added premium for this right,as does any long term offtake contract.

If we are to hear soon on more finance developments we may well see another part of the "plan" unfold prior to this as the offtake secures the line of revenue for debt payback.Could be wrong,but then would you go trying to raise US$90M debt and US$35M in convertible notes without a signed offtake?

You might be able to stretch it with the C/notes,but the debt???I think not.

d.