Hey Dunken This is an extract from an interview with micheal...

Hey Dunken
This is an extract from an interview with micheal Tamlin COO of Neo metals with Metals News,
I reckon the buy back is underway by what the COO states(underlined below;

http://www.metalsnews.com/Metals Ne...dvanced Australian Mt Marion Lithium Proj.htm

Dr. Allen Alper: That's a great, excellent position to be in.

Mr. Michael Tamlin: My experience in China goes back to the second half of the 90's with Greenbushes, then owned by Gwalia, and we developed the market in tiny steps. One of the keys to that was the financial aspect of selling in China and being paid for the product that you've delivered. The way we used to do it was to only load a ship after we'd received a confirmed letter of credit for payment, even though the tenor was usually 90, 120, sometimes a 180 days. Whereas now what we've managed to do is to get a revolving letter of credit to cover one-quarter's shipments so we've always got money in the bank ready for payment.

Mt Marion paid market price and we've got a floor price that covers us for cost of production plus a margin in the worst times. We have payment terms that effectively pay us as the ship leaves port, so the tenure of the letter of credit is on the side of documents.

Dr. Allen Alper: That's a great position to be in.

Mr. Michael Tamlin: Without those 2 partners it would have been very difficult to get an operation into production with stable finances. We've gained an awful lot and we've also been paid well for selling down our shareholding. We're comfortable that we have money in the bank now to continue development of the chemical plant and also, we have returned money to shareholders. We've made a maiden dividends payment in the last couple of months. We have a capital share buyback scheme that is in the market at the moment.

We look at Neometals as a proper business where we're both earning money, returning money to shareholders and reinvesting the money in the business. It has enabled us to look to the future where the added value of the lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate in the battery industry consistently outweighs the profits that can be made from minerals other than in the very best of times. We will be happy to be in the lithium hydroxide market, where the margins that we can capture with our new process are far greater.

Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds very good. Could you elaborate a bit more on the status of the Mount Marion lithium operation and the Eli process?

Mr. Michael Tamlin: Certainly, Mount Marion is really at a very advanced stage now to the point where we've commissioned the crushing operation. We're in a construction phase that has seen the start of mining and the start of crushing and the establishment of some stockpiles. The rest of the concentrator is in various stages of completion but the beneficiation plant is due for completion in the next quarter before commissioning and commencing production of a 6% lithium oxide (Li2O) chemical grade spodumene. It's a higher iron coarse product that is ideal for putting into a calcining kiln where the iron impurity levels really aren't the issue. It's more associated with how the lithium is extracted than anything else.