Agree D on no debt being issued without offtakes. No matter how...

Agree D on no debt being issued without offtakes. No matter how good things look, the banks will not issue any sort of debt funding in a thrid world country without having a concrete debt repayment schedule (I can say this relatively confidently being a banker myself).

The offtakes and hedging arrangements are pivotal to the issue of debt funding as a bank needs to assess the ability of the borrower to service and discharge the debt and it is almost impossible to do without either (a) all the production hedged in order to discharge the loan quickly (the banks would probably prefer this scenario) or (b) at least a significant portion hedged to cover a longer debt repayment period.

Either way, the licence frees up AIM to negotiate these bits and pieces with the smelters and lenders and truth be told I have a lot more confidence in the management of AIM with the financial negotiations than I do with their ability to progress projects through African red tape. This, after all, is MF's speciality and frankly we haven't really seen what he can do on the pulling financial rabbits out of hats.

Will be interesting viewing. Hoping the natives calm down a little bit though!!!