TidalP (and G.)

I would jump in with a few comments just to clear a few things up. No offence intended!

G. said: "Flake graphite needs to be large so that it can be ground to about 20 microns and then potato shaped. This process results in up to 70% loss".

With the words "up to" (underlined) G has himself covered, but for casual readers the statement may be taken as "70% loss" which may be true for spherical graphite produced from China (using mostly small flakes). So, the "70% loss" is something that people would liky remember.

Then, TidalP gave an example to illustrate the superiority of Albany graphite compared to flake garphite, in general, using the 70% loss factor and 50% large flake in a typical flake graphite deposit:

"Now we have 1000Kg x 90% x 50% (and then up to 70% is lost makeing the material needed for battery use) x 30% = 135Kg. The result is just over 10% of the starting material."

This can be used, for illustration purposes, or as an example for a typical flake graphite deposit. Again, TidalP has it covered with the use of the word "typical". But the conclusion of 135kg out out of 1000kg starting material is not applicable for non-typical flake graphite deposit.

One non-typical company that came to mind is NGC (Disclosure: I am also a shareholder of this company as well, so I have kept an eye on that company, along with ZEN which I have a larger chunk). In a recent release, quite recent actually, they have achieved 50% "efficiency" using production scale equipment. The link has other information which is quite relevant for this disussion.

http://northerngraphite.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/14-08-12-NGC-PR-Rounding-final.pdf

In addition, 90% of their Bissett Creek graphite is in the extra-large (jumbo) and large flakes, only 10% is in the fine category (Check out Slide 21 of the Aug 2014 Corp Presentation).

In summary, it would not be correct (nor fair) applying the 135kg/1000kg to NGC Bissett Creek graphite deposit.

I always maintain that it's OK to say good things about ZEN graphite (vein-typed, hydrothermal, etc), but there is no need to put down the flake graphite, specially deposit with large or extra-large flakes which can be processed to produce high quality spherical graphite suitable for high end battery as well.

I found Dr. Ian Flint (Elcora) in an interview (12 Sept 2014) with InvestorIntel very informative. When asked "does flake size matter" his short answer was Yes. Of course, there was a long answer as well, along with other stuff on graphite.

Cheers,

goldhunter