It ran with other graphite plays but was also was pumped with some announcements in particular one about Eddie Sugar coming on board to help get funding, the same way he did with FMG, LNG and a few others, the insiders that got him on board eventually dumped their approximate 14% holding driving the share price down, and ES dropped off somewhere.
TM came on board exactly one year ago to get the thing going, his first stop was the same Middle East money men that got his last project (a mineral sands operation) going.
After several trips and a few letters of offer he packed his bag in the middle of the year and went to Asia for a marketing trip, he came back with a big insite into the expandable graphite market (and a few non binding agreements) the amount and type of graphite and the dollar value, he also signed a binding offtake with a new company in the US for 1k tons per year.
The original Us$100 million to build a 170k ton per year operation proved very hard to attain (without giving away the farm),so it was altered to a two stage development plant, a first stage 20,000 ton per year at a cost of US30 million then use its cashflow to build the bigger plant in a few years time. It’s all bolt on components and this small plant will be relocated to the second site to minimise logistic costs at that time, (all the graphite companies talk about a 7 month finance to production period so they are all looking at the same equipment that is readily available as soon as it’s ordered).
In between trips to the Middle East and elsewhere including African expos he came across Exotix, a fund based in Tanzania, talks with them ramped up pretty quickly (though not quick enough for some on here) and we have come to this point where initial funding of US 30 million has been ramped to $40million for the mine development, this cash comes at an interest rate of 15% ( yes 15%) but no share dilution. Now as all projects in Tanzania must be partly listed on their exchange, the bonds issued with this fund will be listed on there exchange, in time they will be converted to shares so the cash might not to have to be repaid but at this point the dilution should be minimal if VRC it trading in the 20-30c range.
This is what’s happened this year, I rushed typing it so I apologise for typos I missed and the timeframe could be slightly off with a few events.
IMO
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