From the NR, SGS tests have been completed to support the purity "exceeding" 99.9% purity...and this has been forwarded to RPA for their use in the upcoming PEA (soon, the NR says).
Speculations:
- ZEN wants to be on the safe side by not putting out any exact number higher than 99.9%. So, we could expect that the PEA will focus on car batteries and storage bateries for home use. May be this market is good enough for AE, since high end battery grade spherical graphite would fetch some $4-10k for uncoated and coated respectively (these prices are quoted for flake graphite). The price for ZEN graphite, except for the often mentioned $8.5k, is not known, but would be expected to be in the same range when the PEA appears.
$8.5k should be good enough, if the process to produce this quality is economical/low, e.g. below $2k, thus leaving several $k in profit per tonne. Examples: $5k x20,000 t/yr = $100M/yr, which can be scaled up depending on the capacity of the mill/refinery, e.g. 40,000t/y would yield $200 M profit/yr, which is not shabby at all.
- Perhaps by saying "exceeding" 99.9% without spelling out the exact number AE is performing a 7-veil dance. The second veil drop would be the PEA Part 1 (battery), and the 3rd veil in the same PEA, Part 2 (a surprise 99.97% which would comply with the nuclear grade standard...someone said ASTM, but this has not been verified).
- 99.9998%? (Too many 9ners).
In my opnion, there is no point claiming better that the requirement for nuclear grade (ASTM 99.97%) due to the cost to produce much higher purity. It may be possible to produce 99.9998% in the labs, but there are 2 factors that would need to be kept in mind under bulk sale (tonnes) consideration:
- the cost to produce/demand for such a high purity (it's a no go, if uneconomical); and
- the practicality of the extreme accuracy for compliance check during delivery, unless the high standard is downgraded somewhat by ramdom sampling (one small scoop/sample per large container?).
goldhunter
