Hi Harris,
My friends were here prior to my arrival on MRC, They started around March 2021, around the time of the departure of the previous CEO.
I agree with you, it took me around 2-3 weeks to read through the past few years of announcements and watch all of their videos to work out MRC, they don't make it easy to attract new investors. It might be related to the company structure, the top 4 shareholders in MRC held around 75% of the shares on issue.
MRC has recently raised funds in the past 2 years which might be why the announcement and promotion have been so poor. They haven't needed to attract investors.
I think this is the right video by Peter Fox, It talks about the downstream processing and developing the AAM in stages. it is a little old and was released prior to the CEO services being terminated.
To answer your other questions.
AAM downstream process, MRC recently updated shareholders the carbochlorination development had been delayed due to Australia travel restriction, I can only assume Mr Frey wasn't able to enter the country, which prevent progress with the CSIRO. This delay might explain why MRC hasn't decided between Carbo and Caustic. The caustic method is very similar to EGR's and RNU's methods which will requires a method to coat the material. The Carbo method purifies and coats the graphite.
MRC hasn't provided the cycling data of both purification methods to determine which one offers a better anode material.
I have suggested to another ASX listed company, if their cavitation method which uses petroleum feedstocks and produces graphene and synthetic graphtie, can coat spherical graphite with Graphene (its can coat silicon). If it can, for them to discuss with MRC about testing its spherical graphite. The cavitation method should offer a lower CAPEX to MRC's current research.
PFS - Spherical Equipment, I see this as a positive development, the CAPEX is likely to be around US$20-50mil,
Canadian listed Next Source recently provided a presentation indicating 20ktpa of spherical graphite would cost US$20mil. This is more realistic for MRC to raise the equity for spherical equipment, rather than raise US$200-300mil for the AAM production - The investment video suggests MRC is looking to build the AAM in models, although there are no details on the stages or the CAPEX for each stage.
The only way I can see MRC building the full 25ktpa AAM, is by securing the equity with green bonds path or raising the funds on the Nordic bond market. We would still need a binding offtake agreement with FREYR.
PFS - Skaland expansion There will be a lower risk for MRC to expand production capacity to 30ktpa and the CAPEX is likely to be pretty low considering they have a TGC grade ore of 25% TGC, MRC is already looking at improving their tailings which are currently being disposed of in the Fjord, it is limited to 40k tpa, MRC is looking at using the voids/stoops of the historic mining areas to dispose of the tailings, which will allow for any additional tailings to be placed in this area rather than the fjord.
Likely Capex for expansion.
WKT is currently building a mine in Tanzania, their CAPEX for a Chinese production facility that has an annual throughput capacity of around 300ktpa, CAPEX is $32mil. this includes tailings dams and other site works.
If MRC used a similar plant, it would produce around 72k tpa of graphite concentrate.
Next Sources stage 1 production (17ktpa) is from a modular 240ktpa production facility. its CAPEX is US$25mil
MRC doesn't need a production facility of this scale as they already have a 16k tpa capacity at Skaland,
I am not sure if you have seen
@MrGraphite2 post which shows MRC has shipped 16t of graphite concentrate to Urbix in the USA, they are a larger scale testing facility. They have worked with numerous ASX-listed companies with the purification and production of spherical graphite.
