Hi dvsk14! Thanks for sharing your insightfull concerns. I have some comments I'd like to add to the debate. You Write:

what is the main graphite market targetted by ZEN? Batteries? Fuel Cells?

the li-on markets/technology currently used is actually, in technology years, actually quite dated. Current Li-On tehcnology comercialized was developed in the 90's and annually there are advances being made towards improvement. Over the past few years, efforts have been made to advance the anode...which is graphite currently.

Now, you may say "yes, it will take a while to commercialize...

I suppose ZEN is targetting the Li-Ion battery market because it is expected to grow significantly, and because it's the market that Charhar and Yamashita know. Further it's probably wise for them to focus on making an impact on a specific market, rather than targetting all the possible applications that the Albany graphite could be used for, as they are only two salespeople.

You're also right that it's not a new technology, but right now it's the technology that e.g. the car producers are betting on because it's a proven technology. When you're a producer, you can't bet on new technology that might fail in 5 years. You want to be sure, that your product delivers.

In that context I was glad to read about the Tesla Gigafactory. I suppose it would be a much bigger worry for them not to be betting on a technology of yesterday, than ZEN to produce a raw material that have many potential applications. So Tesla is building a $5 billion LI-Ion battery factory. Sure there will be new and better production methods over time, but they are typically implemented gradually, thus ensuring that the cars slowly get better from year to year, just like the other car manufacturers. It's simply a way of protecting their investments. They don't want to implement a revolutionary new technology over night, and then be at a stand still for 10 years. They want steady improvement, so we always want the latest model. And for that reason I'm not so worried about new technology, as others have much more at stake than ZEN.

4. The main drawback for flake graphite deposits targeting battery market has been the loss of material in developign battery tailored grpahite. Well, read up on recent reports from other graphite projects (focus/northern)...ongoing research has led to steady improvements of recoveries in processing flake grpahite for batteries? Is it possible that further advancements can make it competitive with vein graphtie for batteries?

Good point - but I would be more worried about that if I was a producer of synthetic graphite. ZEN probably has an enormous cost advantage over the producers of synthetic graphite, so whoever eventually produces Albany graphite will probably be the last to be run out of business.

Other posters suggest that the graphite market will increase 6 fold within a few years. With the current technology it will probably be up to the existing producers of synthetic graphite to supply most of the growth, which means expensive new industrial plants. Given that they are at an cost disadvantage to ZEN, they probably have much more reason to worry than ZEN - and that IMO would be an excellent reason for one of them to buy ZEN as an alternative to expand by building a new plant.

However, when all is said and done I agree with you that a buy out is not likely to happen soon. The Albany deposit simply has to be much more derisked by ZEN before it's really attractive, as everything about it is novel (natural graphite as a competitive subsitute for synthetic, the production method and so on). You write:

well, the company still has to do a PFS-BFS-EA, lets aggresively say one year.
should the deposit be sold, the buyer will have to dump $300M at a CAPEX and build a mine, lets say 1.5 years.

we are now 2.5 years away from any graphite at albany available for commercial use. And whoever is mining this stuff will targetting a mine life of 25 years...

GLTA ZEN longs