RE:RE:START OF PRODUCTION 2017-09-01Perhaps the reality of Focus' market position and enormity of the agenda Don Baxter has laid out for Lac Knife's development hasn't sunk in yet with those armchair quarterbacks with nothing better to do than bytch about this and that and then whine about the company's inability to stop the rain.
Suggest you find someone knowledgeable in the graphite industry with the process(es) of negotiating offtakes and again, a resource-side banker or institutional financier with the expertise and a history of funding a mining project. Its difficult, I admit, but not impossible.
If you can't fathom what this company has done and where its heading then you shouldn't be in it in the first place.
Even the least objective observer has an opportunity to weigh the merits of a company's progress - thanks to NI 43-101.
I challenge anyone/everyone - to put up a matrix of competing graphite miners and compare numbers.
From Focus' press release last week, we were told the company is considering innovative forms of financing for two projects: Lac Knife mine and plant and, its in-house, value added purification, shaping, sizing and coating facility for battery grade products.
No other competitor has reached this stage of development.
Judging from the previous messages, I have to presume few if any posters have met Mr. Baxter, let alone discussed the Lac Knife project with his team members. AGMs have purposes other than voting for company directors.
And while you're all investigating the permitting process(es), consider the politcal/commercial implications of delaying a project supported by a BFS, double financing and the potential to create new jobs at the mine, the technology jobs required at a purification facility, plus the associated investment in infrastructure and local purchasing.
My guess is that Focus is looking at a $300 million financing.
The environmental permitting process began a year ago. Relations with the Town of Fermont and the Innu community, from what I've heard, are excellent.
And then, in case anyone missed, Tesla says its looking for a low-cost, high quality source of battery material for its model X EVs.
Take a look around. Focus has its costs in check; the quality of Lac Knife's concentrate is unmatched by any flake graphite competitor, and, its battery grade VAP tops any commercial grade battery material in the world.
So, having acheived this exhalted position in the industry, Mr. Baxter finds himself in a position to negotiate the best possible financing deal on behalf of his shareholders.
And, as of today, FMS has not factored the economic potential of its battery grade material into its long-term economic assessment - not publicly anyway.
So, all you armchair quartbacks, wind yourselves up. Start guessing where shareholders will be in six weeks or six years?
I invested in this company at start-up and I can see where we're headed. I also see a huge payday ahead.