Graphite Investors Beware - Prices Are About To Collapse, page-8

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tobyjack

9,236 Posts.

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24/02/17

21:10

Post #: 22893716
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Originally posted by DoctorFouad ↑

These bearish articles on natural spherical graphite for batteries have one common problem : they confound a lack of supply issue with a lack of demand issue. If truly natural spherical graphite was cheaper than synthetic + at least of the same quality, then Economics 101 tells us that there is no reason Battery companies wont switch to natural. This was my response :

Thanks for the article. regarding this paragraph :
"The cost savings in going from synthetic to natural graphite only amount to about $400 for a car that might sell for upwards of $50,000. For that kind of saving in a critical component, auto makers are not necessarily going to choose natural graphite (which is cheaper) over synthetic graphite which has more consistent properties."

Ask any car company and they will tell you that a 400$ per car savings is a substantial amount. For example if Tesla uses natural VS synthetic in Model3 and is able to save 400$ per car, hell they would be more than happy to go for it...

The issue of course is lack of Supply (not lack of Demand). Cheap high quality consistency spherical graphite is rare in the market. Any company able to bring this kind of supply to the market (cheaper than synthetic + at least comparable in quality if not better) will be able to sell it more than easily to Battery Manufacturers.

junior graphite companies able to do so in a timely manner will be successful (we dont know what could happen in 10 years for example). Time is of essence here.

To keep a story short, I am not worried about lack of demand for spherical graphite, I am worried about lack of supply at reasonable price as Dr ian Flint from Elcora likes to put it out.

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"The issue of course is lack of Supply (not lack of Demand). Cheap high quality consistency spherical graphite is rare in the market"

Which is the main reason most battery manufacturers prefer to stick to synthetic - a consistent product.

A lot of graphite companies have spruiked they can achieve battery grade spherical graphite ( sample material), but are yet to produce a consistent product from a commercial plant.
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