I read a post from @rocko yesterday that was the catalyst for me to look into a few areas and maybe try and clear up some confusion around certain topics. Felt it better to start a thread here to open up the discussion rather than inundate the KNL threads with Magnis talk. As always Rocko, appreciate your viewpoints and supplied info!
I’ll have a crack at finding answers to a few of your questions.
Are you confortable sharing trade secrets with Chinese partners? Why are there there no patent applications for innovations?
I’m aware that Magnis do mention late last year that ongoing met characterisation work was in collaboration with “current and potential future offtake partners”, Chinese inclusive. However, in the BFS, Magnis mention that the concentrator process was designed jointly by Logiman and Sedgman, the concentrator process is common for the treatment of graphitic carbon, and that the testwork routine by AMML in Gosford was the basis for the plant design.
As for patents for the innovation, yes the patent for the process design was successfully lodged by Houllis in December last year. Wasn’t sure whether posting a link to the patent was a good idea or not, but it is public information. I know you (Rocko) have been wondering about the MNS flow sheet, and it is shown in the patent. It doesn’t strike me as being overly complex, technical or innovative, merely supportive of highly amenable Nachu flake. i.e. it really is a case of high quality graphite and simple(ish) processing. It may be replicable by others but looks to be (IMO) far more dependant upon starting quality than highly innovative, complex processes.
As a broader general comment, I have noticed confusion around MNS’s assumed basket prices; there is a misconception that Magnis is selling raw -300 micron concentrate to downstream processors at $2100 a pop (admittedly, I was also initially confused by this).
They are not. They are selling spherical graphite, both uncoated and coated, at market prices (approx.. $3200 and $7000 respectively).
They are working with supply chain partners through toll manufacturing to create the spherical, and the revenue minus the costs of toll manufacturing equate to a value in use pricing of $2100 per tonne. Where KNL and SYR are looking at creating spherical through in house operations, MNS is outsourcing that component. I will make a whole other post to this supply chain as I feel this post is already information intensive. For anyone wanting to beat me to it, the addition of Dr. Shailesh Upreti to the board and management of Magnis gives a strong (but yet to be confirmed) indication of the supply chain. Look into his company CCCCV. Again, I will post up again when I can going deeper into this.
What will Magnis do with their Super Jumbo flake if it continues to struggle getting upgraded above 97% without chemical or thermal purification?
Having looked at the process flow sheet, I am not sure the Super Jumbo is struggling to reach the purity levels, I would rather suggest that the specifications of the Super Jumbo and Jumbo products have been designed so that the processing is enough to meet saleable requirements without over processing and incurring additional costs. The December 1st announcement mentions concentrate samples of Jumbo at 99.4% being tested against chemically purified reference samples for expansion properties, so it seems those kinds of purity levels can be reached.
The Blue Ocean Equities report mentions that the Jumbo products can be upgraded to 99.6% to be used as battery feedstock, assuming the pricing and demand was acceptable. I do wonder what qualified silicon composite coated spherical might sell for if Magnis were to convert their jumbo to battery feedstock i.e. would the economics of it offset the reduced premium from Jumbo.
Even if I’m 100% wrong on everything, I do hope I have opened a bit of stuff that could eventually help to clear up any confusion, at least to get some discussion going. Apologies for the gigantic images.
Have a great weekend all!
MNS Price at posting:
82.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)