maximus emerging as a major force in iron ore, page-88

Ithink a little further clairty is required here...

The Vanadium situation is not as you paint. The demand side is very tight. There is a shortfall. It is true that Vandium occurs regularly with Magnetite...but not always. The value of Vanadium as an item on its own is that it is used for strengthening steel with high abrasion resistance as I understand it...that requires additional quantities of Vandium to be added into the steel making process and that is in addition to the naturally occuring volume in most magnetites.

Should this be correct, then the grade of Vanadium is critical so that it maybe separated and sold as a stand alone item. VWL is in gear early with good grade, but MMR already announced from scoyut drilling undertaken in Dec 07 that they have quite outstanding grade...yet to be substantiated.

Accuracy is required on the money at bank position. They raised Oct 07 some A$13mn as I recall. At the AGM big Kev told anyone listening that 70% of this would be 'invested' in the Yandee project, the biggest item being a Helicopter undertaking to assist the targeting - all part of really accelerating the project. That cost them is their budgets are to be believed, the think end of A$1.7mn. Plus 3 other major projects...gold which they are rushing into production to get cash at Selheim...and North Adelaide with the Bird in Hand project, doing as much as they can to get a resource - with a pre Feasability occuring concomitantly. All this will be chewing up cash at quite a rate.

I don't doubt they are wanting news out there as you rather cynically note to support the Option conversions due soon...they'd be damned irresponsible if they didn't!

Being in and around the Fe industry I can tell you that there is plenty of demand side requirement for projects of real scope. The other arm Flinders has good upside, but nothing has been published saying they might have 3bn potentials.

If MXR gets that, its likely to be one of the biggest confirmations this year in THE WORLD for a potentially substantial resource. ALL THESE announcements are also informing the market at large, not just traders. China reads all this just as much as we do...they've been knocking on doors...

Ponder for a moment, Shougang the number 4 in China has the major entry with ARH and a couple of others...CITIC have the other 1/3 of Metralogy's area...Aquilla has a 50% JV...where have the no. 1, 2 and 3 JV'd...Baosteel is no. 1 and has an agreement to fund FMG's rise from 100 to 200 mn tonnes I understand...

Anyone with 3bn, should that occur will be on the radar for sure - it is already!

Cheers