Outofafrica,
I like the polite style of your answers and I like South Africa where I spent some of the best time of my life.
For me it is difficult to understand to which extent Starfield has progressed in piloting the technology, which the company is showing on its video on its internet site. What Dr. Harris has published in regards to hydrolytic distillation of metal chlorides is in some (if not most) respects more the less state of the art since the mid 1970s.
Do you know, what exactly they did in their labs? Do you know who (Harris, McGill, Hatch) is performing which kind of research and how they work together? Are they finally building a pilot plant? What exactly will that plant demonstrate?
It would be a big surprise to me, if Starfield has achieved anything substantial with the few hundred thousand CAD they invested into external research so far.
Another problem seems to be that in my humble opinion nobody - not even the big players like Vale Inco - is currently in a position to secure cheap long term debt to gear a business plan that secures a reasonable ROE. If you name a bank that is ready to jump onto something like that I can send them a list with tens of equally interesting and potentially feasible ventures.
Maybe Ferguson Lake has to wait until the financial markets have stabilized and banks become more interested in long term project financing again.
Regards from Yekaterinburg
Hydro
