Can you explain a bit more about the country risks that you see...

Can you explain a bit more about the country risks that you see in Malawi - political or social? - my experience has always been that during development and startup there are very few and i cant see anything here (not the rest of Africa) that particularly concerns me - as host developing countries and communities tend to welcome the early investment particularly if there are few other options and there is much employment for the local community during construction - it is usually a few years into operating a project that the trouble can start if one's social programmes are not in tune and responsive. Hard to stop the political layer from deciding that "that looks good i want a larger piece of it as equity or tax" as development infrastructure and competition grow in a country but that is someway down the track. I am assuming that negotiations on subsequent phases as the project scale grows to world class are going to have to address those type of risks.

Most instos i have come across will make sure they understand the political and social risks in significant detail and are not necessarily put off by them unless they are worthy of avoidance.

Management - i cant tell - Alistair looks to be working hard at getting things going and has done a good job with assessing the resource - i cant see any reason why his board would not be doing the same - but as others have loudly voiced - they have not yet captured the attention of the big boys yet and so it seems fair to question why and whether they every will.

As to offtake - perhaps the remaining volumes are highly conditional on an investment decision happening first - or as they appear to be saying that this will be a low cost phase 1 and they already have a deal in place for a good portion of offtake, maybe rushing to forward sell or contract the remainder at this stage is not particularly helpful to financing development and therefore lower priority. We can only guess - and i would really like to see a total resource development strategy from the company that puts everyone's questions in context and leads to a sensible, financeable, non-dilutionary development path.

There is no doubt in my mind that the REE price decline has not been helpful and further exacerbates the market cap weakness.

Still none of my original investment criteria have been broken as yet, bringing in instos wasnt one of them, and that is why i am still here with an open mind.