jeez, I wish you guys would stop calling everyone who questions...

jeez, I wish you guys would stop calling everyone who questions RAU a downramper. I'm a top 20 holder of RAU options so chances are I've got more at stake in RAU then the rest of you and pie-in-the-sky guessing games about what RAU might be up to don't cut it with me.

And yes, of course i've looked through all the company releases over the last year, but as with most companies, these are always written with an element of spin.

"The Company has supplied a sample of antimony concentrate from the Northcote Project to a Chinese smelting company for testwork. The smelting company was very pleased with the quality of the concentrate and has expressed interest in securing a contract for any antimony concentrate that the Company can produce."

- All very well and good. At this stage drilling has found some antimony on Northcote but the same drilling has also been inconclusive as to their being grades of economic quantity. Basically the Chinese Smelting company are just saying "look, if you find a heap of minerals sure we'll smelt it for you". Untill RAU does, then Northcote remains uneconomic.

"The same group has expressed interest in any tungsten resources that the Company might be able to develop on its 100%-owned ground in FNQ"

-again the same thing, find some tungsten and we'll smelt it for you. Hardly rocket science.

"The delegation was particularly interested in the Company’s gold projects in Far North Queensland and in the Burraga Copper Project. This is an excellent complement for the Malaysian Chinese investors who have predominantly invested in the Company because of the tungsten projects."

-drilling in both Queensland and Burraga have suggested that there are minerals in the ground but again they haven't proven to be economically viable with the current drilling results. And yes, the chinese at this stage were interested in RAUs tungsten projects but one of those was Mt Carbine which RAU had done a feasibility study on. We don't know what the results of that study were but we can assume that Mt Carbine was RAUs only economically viable Tungsten play. With Mt Carbine off the table this situation has now changed. In fact, the malaysians could probably see that Mt Carbine wasn't as done a deal as JK may have implyed, so yes I don't blame them for drawing their money out and being free carried through till now.

"During the delegation’s initial visit in December it viewed the Company’s Far North Queensland projects. On this visit the delegation viewed the Company’s 75%-owned Burraga Base Metals Project."

- Hardly anything to get excited about unless you know why they visited both projects. It may have been to look at grades or it may have been out of politeness. All we know is that at this stage grades from both projects have been 50/50 at best. Which brings me back to my initial question - just what is it that the Chinese want, if anything?

It can't be Mt Carbine as RAU had the money to pay more for it on their own if they really wanted it, and none of the the other projects have accelerated their drilling programs significantly to indicate that they had finally found commercial grades of anything.