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16/06/15
11:23
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Originally posted by Graphite
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Paul,
Yes not all natural Flake Graphite's are the exact same. Each different origin of of natural flake graphite can have different properties. One major difference is the analysis of the ash. Each different origin of natural flake has different % elements in the ash. In most applications the different in Ash is not a concern to end users but in some real specialty application the % elements in the ash are important. As for Ancuabe Flake which was mined in the past by Kenmare Resources in the 90's and then closed due to fact their mining cost were higher then their average selling price the end user making graphite foil like the fact this graphite has some lower temp expansion properties that you mentioned. The issue however back in the 90's was that the graphite foil market was not able to consume all the volume produced thus Kenmare resources was forced to all sell some of their capacity into the refractory market at prices below their production cost. I believe today the companies trying to develop graphite mines with capacity over 20,000/mt will have the exact same issue. I do not believe YXGC will consume more then 20,000/mt per year and thus they will be forced to sell the remaining 80,000/mt into refractory applications at very low prices.
This agreement is just a MOU and not a take or pay contract which if I were a investor would only be willing to invest if the company had a take or pay contract with a min FOB price that was above projected production cost.
BTR
Keep in mine BTR invested in it's own low cost graphite mine in China that currently has excess capacity. So I assume BTR must first use all its current capacity.
Hitachi
I assume this added capacity is to supply to Telsa and thus I assume Telsa is preferring to use Synthetic Graphite. Not good news for the Natural Graphite Mining Companies.
Question:
It seems quite logical to me that should any new/up ramped future Graphite output worldwide have/show a larger percentage of larger flake sizes in comparison to today's market, then the increase in availability of these larger flake sizes would likely create lower potential average sale prices for such flake size.
Agree. The bigger issue is in reading all the various Jr. Graphite Mining Companies reports is the fact their average selling prices are very much over optimistic. As a potential investor I have been following the following 3 Graphite Mining Companies: Flanders Resources, Stratmin Global Resources and Valence Industries Ltd. to determine when they will be cash flow positive. The net result on Flanders was not good in that they have closed the graphite mine at present due to low selling prices below the production cost but expected since this mine was never going to be low cost or make higher purity grades. If the other 2 Graphite mines also close over time will investors wake up and realize how difficult graphite mining is and how difficult it is to sell out the mines capacity at and average price above production cost. Only time will tell.
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Where you have Flanders do you mean Flinders , made a typo?
because there was a recent interview with Blair Way of Fl I nders that made no mention of being closed and would only go into production of High Grade Flake when he had one of your Take or Pay contracts. Further he had some long term scenario of using first mover advantage in 2020 on to 'gooble up' other juniors by takeover or joint venture whatever.
Another Interview with Stratmin around same time had an interview with their new MD, an Aussie [oi oi oi] who also was proposing a similar 'gobble' in the 2020's.
I've seen all the traditionals Imery/Superior/ Asburys even AMC/GK similarly are said by 'the experts' to be on the 2020 M/A game of Barbarians at the Gate
how about you get nicked name, Skater rather than Skier or Graphite ?