The mine signature possesses mesh size fractions from high...

The mine signature possesses mesh size fractions from high levels of fines, and limited medium and coarse and to achieve the purity targets of 95% + LOI based on the SYR's ore body will require higher levels of grinding. You cannot make flake size larger, but you can sure make is smaller. You commit on increasing coarse flake yield at the expense of fines, may work for purity target range of 80% to 85% LOI for this particular ore body, as there is reduced attrition and grinding. Recoveries are increased as retention time is reduced. There may be small increase in coarse flake yield by reduced grinding, yet the mesh size fraction yields across the entire ore body will remain consistent with a high percentage of fines and lower percentages of medium and coarse flake.

In the early 2000's, I visited mines in China and other locations around the world when there were high inventories of fines with some operations with up to 50,000 MT of fines inventory on the ground for an extended period time. In the end, several operation sold to requalified processors at sub US$200 EXW just to get rid of fines inventory.

A pragmatic and graphite experienced approach to the graphite market would be to produce graphite product to prequalified & qualified customer demand and not flood the market with tens of thousands of tonnes as SYR has done hoping ANY END USER would qualify and purchase. Putting the cart before the horse in this case leading to poor inventory management, out of touch understanding with the graphite market, and hanging on to the promises made 3+ years ago to produce hundreds of thousands of tonnes hoping the EV market would somehow dwarf into a graphite consuming behemoth; all of which has yet to materialise almost 10 years when the unrealistic predictions were initially made by so called market experts.

This all falls back on one of my prior posts that prior bulk industrial mineral experience that is not graphite does not mean a iron ore team can run a graphite operation and be successful. To date, there is no evidence this has or will ever happen based on the following:

1. Sending up to 100 MT Samples to potential customers to impress them with quantity instead of quality samples (I have several contacts in China who were not happy with receiving 5 or more containers for sampling?)
2. By undercutting prices for fines by more than 40% - 50% in the efforts to displace Chinese suppliers to meet the unrealistic goals of meeting the unrealistic goal of producing to 345,000 MT per annum (More than 50% new supply into a market that was in equilibrium)
3. Obtaining their market intelligence from third party market firms and consultants who have limited expertise or understanding of the graphite market and developing price narratives based solely on FOB China / biased supplier based pricing.
4. Demonstrating to the investors the current management team's "quantity over quality" strategy is based more on iron ore bulk industrial mineral metrics and not graphite metrics.

ALL graphite has to be qualified and no two signatures are alike possessing unique metallurgical and chemical markers. A single mine signature's product will NOT work in every application which is why SYR has not had broad based qualified acceptance of their fines as a battery SPG precursor.

Perhaps one day the SYR investors will hold the SYR management to account and secure qualified graphite experience in their sales and operations and remove the bulk industrial mineral iron ore mentality.