I thought I would go back to this post just to provide a gauge on graphite demand needs in lithium ion batteries (excluding other areas of graphite demand like steel). Going back into the literature and what I can read and expand on the post I am linking herein, essentially the anode in lithium ion batteries requires around 1kg of graphite (spherical graphite - based on graphite flake - and synthetic graphite). Average battery size is around 50kWh which implies 50 kg of graphite (and if go back to my previous post some numbers are higher than this whilst some are less than this)
https://investorintel.com/market-an...h-teslas-potential-new-demand-flake-graphite/
The key becomes the share of synthetic graphite to spherical graphite ratio, and in a general sense, the estimates suggest a 50/50 share but that is a key assumption for testing the outcomes as they flow through to graphite flake demand, so in effect (and important to RNU) is that 25 kg of that graphite in the anode is spherical graphite (assuming the 50/50 split is what occurs but that seems to be in the ballpark). The literature also suggests you need 2kg to 3kg of graphite flake for each kg of spherical graphite, a key point as well.
Against the above, in 2018 just 2 million EVs were sold worldwide, but this is expected to increase to 15 million to 22 million EVs in 2025 (see earlier linked post for references of where these figures come from) and that means signifcant increase in graphite demand. What this implies is that at 15 million EVs need 750,000 - 1,125,000 million tonnes of graphite flake, and for 22 million vehicles need 1.1 million to 1.65 million tonnes of graphite flake just to serve the lithium battery needs for the EV market (on the 50/50 assumption above). This is before we talk about the other uses of graphite, such as in the traditional steel market.
Obviously the data suggests there is ample room for a number of new entrants to the graphite market and lets hope RNU is one of them. My workings are below:
All IMO IMO
