Many of us have 'guessed' that (a) a buyout would come pre-PEA or (b) we will never see a PEA, etc.
One important factor in the buyout scenarios is the new information we have on target markets. The annual production will never go to one end user, unless said user was involved in all of these markets. So if an end user buys Zen they will have to sell part of the annual production - the perctenage of finished product that does not meet their needs. This actually complicates the process of an end user buyout, but will not necessarily reduce the value.
We do know that this type of deposit has never been mined before and that this volume of high purity natural graphite has never been available before. And we know this is a very secretive market. All of this points to just wet fingering the sky.
If I were asked to state the most likley scenario i would say a JV between a Canadian miner and a large end user. But like the rest of you, I am just guessing.
Zen's move to more of a product development phase would be end user driven and will help to solidify the pricing in the PEA (assumming we see it..loll).
I am not sure I said anything usefull above...
