I have been sitting on the sideline watching... and reading during the period where ZEN has been sitting under the silence cone. No news...except for the last NR that sent the SP in a downward spiral. It was a gut-wrenching experience for many, but I have not jumped ship and my ZEN holdings remain intact. Luckily, the SP has recovered somewhat which provides some calm to the nerve.

Alright, it may be time to look at the situation and reflect a bit given the "facts" as they have been given to us, along with our own DD/judgment, to come up with our ultimate conclusion during this holiday season. It would be difficult to avoid mixing in the emotion, but for a cold and calculated reflection, emotion would be best to be kept in check.

Here is a few items that may stir up some discussion.

1. Deposit: Zen has a good size deposit. Over 1M tonne of high quality graphite which would last over 20 years is not bad compared to other deposits. Quality is good and tonnage is good. Some other deposit also has good quality, but the tonnage may be difficult to quantify due to the nature of the deposit...not as well-defined as the two pipes ZEN has in Albany, which are pitable as currently envisaged. In addition, due to a compact geometry the Albany deposit could be extracted in a UG operation as well, but this has not been discussed by ZEN. Perhaps, AE could shed some light on this, since it could be a more economical and a more acceptable way of doing things these days (out sight out of mind from the EA point of view).

2. Comparison with Voisey Bay: VB was an interesting story that made Robert Frieland a billionaire and a legend as an explorer (he later found Oyu Tolgoi, Cu/Au, in Mongolia, and other larges deposits, Pt, Cu.., in Africa) and promoter. He's in a class by himself and AE cannot match this SuperPromoter. The Voisey Ni deposit is not the same as the Graphite deposit in Albany. It was sold for more than $4B, back then, based on the strength of the "ovoid", but the deposit kept on growing after the acquisition, indicating that the purchase price of $4B was not bad a price to pay after all. That was history.

But if we now want to equate the value of our ZEN deposit to that of VB, i.e. ZEN should be worth $4B then that would translate to $4B/55Ms = $72/share. This is great, but simply unrealistic. Even 1/4 of that would give $18/s which may be considered reasonable by others, but for me anything above $10/s is just great. At $10 half of my holdings would probably be gone, and above $15/s would empty my holdings. Of course, others may decide to do things differently. Just keep in mind that the current SP is $1.4/s, and 14/s represents a 10x, which is phenomenal. For those luck ones with an entry price of say $0.30/s they can probably cash some in at an SP less than $10/s.

3. Information available to shareholders: As many posters have said, ZEN has not been very good compared to other companies in dishing out info to investors/shareholders. There is a lot more information that could be released without damaging the NDA agreements. Make it simple for investor to understand. For example, the concentrate after the flotation (standard) process should be clearly stated. If it was not a standard process then say so and describe the non-standard features.

Now according to the last NR, it is 92.5% Cg compared to the previous average(?) of 78.3%. ZEN should also include information such as the type of sample (bulk, or samples taken from diffrent locations for these values).

4. Tests required for various customers: Tests and optimization required (to be done by ZEN) for all ~25 NDAs are expensive and time consuming. Some (graphite) companies just decide to do a base case to demonstrate the quality of their graphite (e.g. for Li-ion batteries) and let the subsequent tests to be performed by the potential customers (just give them samples and they can do the tests for their own specifications themselves). If they like it, then they can approach and put in a proposal for off-take, or TO.

It's just too difficult to chase too many customers (just like chasing too many girl/boy friends). One has to be selective, narrow down the list to a max of 5, or 3/better and rank them. Perhaps, ZEN could do 3 separate tests for 3 potential customers to demonstrate that ZEN graphite can meet their requirements. In fact the onus should not be on ZEN to give the results to each individual company. The selected companies can do the test themselves at the same time, and ZEN can compare the results with theirs.

It would be hard (actually, not that hard) to trim down the list of potential mates, but ZEN would need to protect itself and its shareholders from "tire kickers". It's not that difficult to spot those on the fringe. If I were AE I would start with the biggies and rank them. Panasonic/Tesla on the top of the heap?

Enough ranting for the last few days of the year. Let's wait for the PEA in the new year. There would be no chance for having it before 31 Dec 2014. I could be wrong though, lol.

Likewise, I would take this opportunity to wish everyone Happy Holidays!

goldhunter