Potential Upside of WKT - Expandable Graphite, page-1478

Farmers

1) Plant Recovery only ​

66%​

in 2019 Q2 - ​

In the Balama BFS it was assumed to be 92.5%. With so much capital sunk into a huge 350 ktpa plant they are hemorrhaging money with that sort of performance as 29% of their forecast graphite concentrate is going to the tails dam.
Overgrinding appears required to liberate their graphite. Comes down to the balancing act and the trade offs one has to sacrifice in order to be producing. Less Grinding More flotation. IMO they cant afford to reduce the grinding processes and increase the flotation times as this will impact production quantity unless you upsize and increase costs to do so.

The less grinding the better and perhaps they cant reduce the grinding processes without losing further recovery rates. As you say approx 29% going to tailings is a big issue, perhaps they cant recover it. The balance act of trading off the flow process to optimise the recovery rates, the flake sizes and purities is complicated.​

2) Fine Flake (-minus 100 mesh) production ​

88%​

of concentrate in 2019 Q2. ​

Way too much fines compared to their BFS (fines at only 68%) which attract $400 less than +80 mesh (medium or larger flake). Refer price graph below from Benchmark Minerals, May 2019.

Way to much fines indeed. The question is it from OVER GRINDING or is it from that section of their digging and how well is their liberation and flotation processes optimised. What is the make up of the 29% going to tailings ???
Either way it doesn't bode well.​

2) Medium, Large and Jumbo Flake (+ 80 mesh) production ​

12%​

in 2019 Q2. ​

Syrahs BFS had 32% of flake size distribution at Medium or larger. Their plant would appear to have issues in not preserving flake size. It is not appropriate to compare all projects to Balama. For example Epanko BFS estimates 79.5% of concentrate produced will have coarser flake greater than minus 100 mesh. The Epanko graphite has a much coarser flake size distribution than Balama.

Interestingly enough the 12% is NOT broken down into the fractions so investors have no idea of its value and lost value in the grinding processes.

Take the +80 mesh out of the equation and what would their basket prices look like then ? Not very good IMO.
I would assume

IMO SYR need to preserve their flake sizes and adapt their flotation processes for maximum effect and then work backwards for their optimisation.

This one would hope, would provide SYR with better flake size retention and less production output and reduce the oversupply into the market as it just hurts themselves.

I personally don't care what SYR does and doesn't do as I am not a shareholders and have been watching them for the past couple of years and I most certainly KNEW that SYR was not going to be profitable and is why I never invested in SYR.

I certainly understood WHY not to invest in SYR as was unrealistically way over priced back in 2017 when she was $4 per share and today trading at $1 (still overpriced IMO)

I certainly did not get it wrong and I am astounded as how everyone else did get it WRONG !

I am no expert but I do consider myself much more knowledgeable and smarter than the average bear only due to my own intensive research and very thankful I am not one of those investors who would be underwater by 75%.

Chin Up Farmers - When WKT Finance drops their will be plenty of egg on faces and will also be more to go around next year when WKT also goes into production : ))​