I agree, DC is refreshingly modest in his expectations for success.
No wonder he has managed Offtakes for double stage 1 capacity with Tier1 anode players while other wannabes struggle for relevance.
I thought it interesting DC’s response to Dominic Piper’s comment that Australian miners have had a ’checkered’ history when it comes to downstream and value adding products (7:45sec). It’s not we won’t be one of them but instead goes through the process of how they’ll do it in clear and uncertain terms. It’s this sort of thing that sets him apart from so many other MD’s.
For me the key take away message is that Graphite hasn’t had the rocket under it’s reported price like lithium has had for a number of reasons. One reason is that China controls the graphite concentrate market and 100% of the PSG downstream. So, the reported price is controlled by them and therefore isn’t truly reflective of the demand pressure, ie, there is no need for an auctioning process when you can buy and sell amongst yourselves. However, this ‘mates-rates’ pricing will change as we see the building of cell manufacturing gigafactories outside of China coming on line. This will lead to more Anode manufacturers needing to build more sites. And as they do, this will lead to price pressure increases.
At about 6:25 sec - DC hinted that he has more demand from Anode manufacturers (outside of China) for their product.
