Gilmar

Your post says: "What does shock me is the CEO of flake companies that continue to let their comments in the SS articles stand and therefore appear to endorse and support this totally discredited hatchet site".

First, I would agree that hatchet job by MD was a piece of unbalanced/bias write-up on a company which may be used for the purpose of potential financial gain for shorting activities. It was a bad mix of quotes from industry experts, reviewers and her own spins to suit the purpose. Evil intention!

Back to your post, I would suggest that there should be nothing shocking about MD quoting people, including CEO of other type of graphite companies, e.g companies developing natural flake graphite. The name calling "flake graphite" is not appropriate, since its intention (correct me if I am wrong in my interpretation) to discredit companies developing non-vein graphite. In my book, vein, vein-typed (as we now and ZEN has stated that they do contain falkes), hydrothermal, natural flakes (don't attribute dead animals/trees to them, as opposed to the pure stuff from the magma) have their own places in various kind of applications. Hence, there is no need to play one against the other. If we do, we may have black eyes all around. My suggestion would be to tone down this kind of "name calling", especially on this board (much better reputation than some other boards on the other side).

Back to the comment from CEO (a?) company which is development natural flake graphite. I would raise the following:

- Was the quote came from the e-mail from the CEO to Street Sweeper, including the portion about "4% amorphous graphite". It would be a surprise to see that this conservative CEO would declare such a thing for ZEN graphite, unless amorphous would include vein. Most likely, he would probably say something like (my words, not his): Zen is not vein graphite (like vein in Sri Lanka)". This statement just represents the fact, and would not contradict ZEN's assertion that it's vein-typed (presumably, similar in composition). Since we all know that the Albany ore grade is round 4-5% (graphite dispersed in a large rock matrix, due to the cooking/hydrothermal action by Mother Nature) compared to nearly 90%(?) for Sri Lanka (vein, but small...and that why they have high grades). Imo, 4-5% is just good enough if the size of the high purity deposit is large enough, and the cost to bring the good stuff up from the deep is low enough to make some profit. And all this will be discussed in the upcoming reports NI-43-101 and PEA.

- The rest of the quotes from this CEO is of technical nature and factual, including the concession (assuming a verbatim quote): "natural flake ...graphite does not have the characteristics to be used in these markets regardless of purity". In other words, this company does not intend to compete with ZEN, since it has its own sandbox to play in.

In fact, these quotes were nothing new, and we have seen/read them before. They don't have to come from this CEO. Note: MD exposed her card at the beginning of the quotes with unrestrained enthusiasm, e.g. blunt review by the most advanced and ...most respected graphite miner in the entire space...(emphasis mine). Yes, she exposed herself totally (yes, it's soooo transparent), hence this hatchet job is not a clever plot.

I would suggest that either MD herself, or the CEO of the company quoted by MD, should be contacted to see if

(a) the quotes are correct, and

(b) he gave her a card blanche for her piece. Quite often, CEO of a company would not have much time to read all the articles related to him or his company, unless shareholders or potential shareholders contact him directly with the information for his clarification.

Some posters have said perhaps this hatchet piece (discreting ZEN, pitting vein against flake graphite) was intended to bring the entire graphite industry down. Interesting speculation.

goldhunter