Hi all, today's announcement is significant because the industry...

Hi all, today's announcement is significant because the industry yield is a lot higher than 50% that is often used by graphite players in SPG studies, including by RNU itself. This means improvement in NPV and the bottom line for RNU, if translates to the revised feasibility studies when released, which I presume the yield assumption will be increased in any revised study. It is also showing a industry trend that with improvements in technology recovery rates do improve in producing SPG - this comment should probably be read in conjunction with this post - Post #: 51768438.

In terms of the debate in the other thread around flake size and SPG this old article is good in explaining things - the key though is today's announcement clearly shows that yields are improving as technology improves, and now recoveries are estimated at well above 50% from the time this article was written a few years back.

From the article is the below I copied under @@@@, but the key is the importance of the desalination plant we talked about on here a few days back - water requirements are a key in producing SPG and now we have potential access to good water supply- SPG-Summary-2.pdf (northerngraphite.com)

This article is also ok:
PaydirtMarch.pdf (csaglobal.com)

All IMO

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Due to losses during the micronizing and rounding stages, three tonnes of flake graphite concentrate
are required to produce one tonne of SPG and this represents a major cost. The waste is essentially
powder and dust which has little value. Industry yields have improved to 40 per cent or more and
Northern and some other companies have reported yields in excess of 50 per cent. Small flake
graphite (less than 100 mesh) is used to make SPG because it is cheap and readily available. Medium
and large flake can also be used but prices for these grades are higher and it does not make economic
sense to turn them into SPG. Small flake graphite currently sells for approximately $500/t in China so
raw material costs to produce one tonne of SPG are $1,250 based on a 40 per cent yield.

Most flake graphite can probably be made into SPG but that does not mean it would be commercially
used. Some concentrates are better than others. Concentrates with low bulk density translate into a
battery with lower energy density and are not preferred. Also, concentrates with a high percentage
of fines will result in a low yield of SPG.

Micronized and rounded material is then purified from approximately 94%Cg to 99.95%Cg using
hydrofluoric and sulphuric acid as impurities affect battery performance. (Cg means carbon in
graphitic form as opposed to carbon atoms which are tied up in the molecular structure of other
minerals). Wet chemical purification is a low cost process in China, approximately US$300/t.
However, large quantities of water are required to rinse the graphite and the costs of neutralizing
agents and proper environmental and health and safety practices with respect to handling HF can
increase costs to US$1,000/t. This is one of the reasons almost all uSPG is produced in China.