Most mining prospecting companies, including TJ's long-time...

Most mining prospecting companies, including TJ's long-time darling, AXE, try to have a number of irons in the fire. That's reasonable, and rational. It's also true that, at the time of acquiring the leases, there is often not a great deal known about the resources those leases contain - a lot of optimism, perhaps, and, most times, a lot of disappointment.

Very, very rarely, a company finds that they have the largest, and richest deposit of a mineral in the world - which is where SYR find themselves today. By the standards of most graphite explorers, (AXE included, maybe, TJ?) Nachingwea possibly still represents an attractive proposition. But compared to Balama, it is (like virtually every other graphite prospect in the world!), essentially irrelevant. Naturally, SYR management have ditched Nachingwea. Why does TJ want SYR to waste time there?

(As an aside, it's worth pointing out that not all decisions to walk are good ones - think how African Eagle are feeling right now, having sold the Balama lease to SYR for $1.5m, less than three years ago).

Road quality is only relevant to the level of development at a point in time. Road quality is a whole spectrum. "Good access" early on may very well mean good exploration access via a four-wheel drive vehicle - and still be a goat-track. That is worlds apart from the kind of road needed to truck graphite concentrate to port. There simply is no contradiction here. It is not clear whether TJ's constant harping on this point is due to a lack of understanding of mineral prospecting and mine development, or to a deliberate attempt to draw attention away from the main issues (as has been suggested).

Frankly, I don't care what people call the Nachingwea road. What is important, and what represents a real positive for SYR holders, is that SYR management have got their priorities in the right place, and are visibly focusing their energies on the development of what is unquestionably the world's premier graphite/vanadium resource.

Cheers, Prime1