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I was interested in the LA report about the company that DHSC favoured over Novacyt.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-07-28/innova-pasaca-covid-17-antigen-test-british-uk-government
Mention below of shenanigins and shill bidding. Very unusual for such a new company to win such a prestigous deal.
The situation was mentioned - https://nairametrics.com/2022/02/04/alhaji-musbau-mohammad-bashir-the-man-behind-mafab-communications-5g-license-winner/
Mafab Communications
Mr Bashir came to the limelight after Mafab, his telecoms company won the bid for the 5G technology spectrum auction.
Mafab was on the lips of many Nigerians as they wondered about the financial capacity of the company that beat the popular Airtel Nigeria on the 5G auction.
Mafab is one of the technological subsidiaries of Althani Group of companies.it was incorporated on July, 8, 2020 and is licensed by NCC to provide and operate Local Interconnect and International carrier services.
Max, it was good to get the international recognition for the quality and quantity. I think Aecom were in the pot before the accreditation but regardless, VRS do need to keep the sales pressure going as just this accreditation on its own will not guarantee success. Still positive.
Everything seems to take longer than the ordinary shareholder would like.
Nice bit in the China Daily : http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201910/03/WS5d95af51a310cf3e3556eae5.html
Hannah Jackson, head of China development at UK cosmetics company The Body Shop, advised UK companies to be patient and to find local partners when moving in to China.
"Don't rush – go there, do your due diligence, meet with lots of potential partners, trust your gut instinct, and take time doing this," Jackson said. "It takes time and commitment in my experience. In the West there is an expectation to do things quickly. In China, it comes down to trust and understanding."
I don't remember seeing a slide of 3.4 or 34m T of graphene production and certainly followed what Patrick was up to. Would be interesting to see the slide if you can find it.
I seem to remember that VRS were in collaboration with a bandage/wound dressing and that seemed to be going well. I will have a look for some details.
If a company was going to use graphene in important composites then I would think they would want to be satisfied that it was to the highest standard - a standard such as verified by the Graphene Council. Only one company in the world so far !.
Terrance Barkan, Executive Director of the Graphene Council released a nice topic today -
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/composites-graphene-stronger-together-terrance-barkan-cae-1e/
Composites have emerged as the leading industrial application to take advantage of graphene, a unique 2 dimensional nano-material that was only isolated in 2004 and for which the Nobel Prize for physics was awarded in 2010.
Graphene offers tremendous potential to take existing and new composite materials to another level of performance. One of the things that makes graphene so interesting is that it offers multiple benefits, including potential improvements in strength, electrical conductivity, heat transfer, EMI shielding and others.
You are welcome RH. I have the time on my hands being retired and need to pay attention as I have a lot of my pension pot in VRS at the moment. I really hope I have made the right choice.
Hi RH. Not an ink as it is a solid at room temp and has to be heated in order to flow. Can be made into a filament that can then be used in 3D printing but would not think that it would replace graphinks for 2D printing. In the earlier days they were exhibiting a graphene enhanced filament that was used to 3D print the robots but surprisingly they do not have it as a product offering as far as I know.
RH, Polygrene is a separate product by VRS. A range of polymers with different weight loadings. A lot of potential with this product but that could be said about all the other VRS products. Slowly coming to the boil with all of them I think.
Don't see how PIs will do any better than to buy now. For the BIGT stake, once they buy the new shares that is a healthy bunch of cash in the VRS bank that could be put to very good use and further derisks this share. I continue to hold.
RH, I would think the O&G company are well advanced in the testing and should be close to actual field testing. As much as we would love a positive update I think the NDA would keep all info quiet to us. The O&G company will want the maximum lead time over their competitors and will be holding VRS to keep quiet about their tests other than - this collaboration has progressed well. We will only know of the real success via future revenue. Even if the company is successful, they may not even advertise their stator as graphene enhanced - just the toughest elastomer on the market. This way their competition will still be in the dark.
RH - no drilling tool used in fracking. The hole is drilled with the tool and fracking is just where a liquid with some propant is pumped to the desired formation and then substantial pressure is applied to force the rock apart where the liquid is forced into the fissures and once pressure is removed, the cracks remain open thus helping any hydrocarbons to flow easier. They were doing this back in the 70s so don't know why the anti fracking brigade are against it so much. The drilling tool of the RNS in my opinion can only be a mud motor which is a positive displacement tool where the pumped fluid causes the shaft with the drill bit to rotate. The stator of the motor is made with a substantial amount of elastomer which seals against the rotor. Problems happen when the elastomer breaks apart due to overtorque by stalling and heat build up in the lobes. When the elastomer fails, the motor has to be pulled back to surface and changed. With the addition of graphene to the elastomer, it should increase the power capability (faster drilling rate) and probably help the heat dissipate better (more reliable). The deeper the well, the more hostile the environment - the Oil operator will demand the best stator and be willing to pay over the odds to make sure it drills faster and be more reliable. This is a great application and the innovator wants to keep it secret as long as possible while being able to charge a premium before the competition gets wind.
I seem to remember seeing someone speculating that graphene could be used in fracking when it was announced about the sale to an "Oil & Gas Company". That speculation is wrong and the graphene was for use in a drilling tool that will hopefully result in further orders once the tool has proven to be superior to that currently available. Lab tests had been done and this quantity sale, in my opinion, is to have complete stators manufactured for at least flow loop testing but hopefully real well drilling use.