FYI If you look back over the last two years or so, the graphite sector has evolved where investors can now easily distinguish which emerging graphite developers have made that quantum shift in thinking - and planning - to capture that future high-end market share that will sustain mine expansion for the next generation and beyond.
Graphene's emergence is creating changes in material science the world hasn't seen since the Industrial Revolution. Market researchers have already labeled graphene as a disruptive technology, that is, a technology so impactful it has the potential to revolutionalize manufacturing processes on a pan-industrial scale.
In case anyone has been sleeping since May 2010, when Focus listed, a trio of visionaries and doers started plotting a course to dominate the graphite mining sector, and later, building up from their high-grade graphite deposit, plotting a new course to capture the benefits that come from an advanced material revolution.
Jeff York, Gary Economo and Dr. Gordon Chiu have positioned Focus Graphite and Grafoid to achieve something no other graphite-related enterprise in the world has ever done before and that is: engineer a graphite production process that results in costs that not even China can match, and; secondly, produce graphene from graphite ore in a one-step process that, given Gary's remarks to INN the other day, carve out a place for Grafoid and its graphene in the world that leaves any graphene competitor in Grafoid's wake.
As someone whose group was fortunate to have invested large in what was then Focus Metals nearly three years ago, I've noticed way too much doubt creeping into the FMS conversation on this board.
Recall Mr. Economo's "business unusual" comment in a speech, then follow the subsequent activities intended to support the company's goals.
No graphite enterprise in the world has what FMS has in its hands. Not Timcal, not SGL, not Graftech and not Mitsui or Superior Graphite. So, making suggestions as to how Mr. Economo should strategically devolve its assets is a non-starter, in my opinion. This company's management does not plan for failure. It incorporated future thinking in its operations three years ago.
Events will unfold as they should and will. FMS offtakes and financing will come in a market loathe to lend a mining juinor a penny and Grafoid will become a public company sometime this year. That's my prediction.