How good and refreshing (hey uni?) is this chat? I don't need to contribute much, just thought I would provide an illustration to highlight Pav's comment:
There are some analysts who still don't get that grade is not king, and that flake distribution is a bigger driver of value
View attachment 159502
Just a high-level chart to illustrate KNLs good distribution of jumbo, large and medium flake.
SYR is obviously working on getting their small and amorphous flake to expandable quality suitable for batteries. MNS is going the other direction, trying to see if they can replace synthetic graphite used in batteries with their large and jumbo flake (basically their only flake) without using chemical purification - at present they cannot get their super jumbo above 97% purity, their jumbo over 99.4%. and they have got
some of their large to 99.8% and had relative success with testing in lithium-ion batteries. It raises many a question for their upcoming BFS (of which I will provide some detailed peer analysis once it comes out), but I would particularly like to know how much their Chinese offtake partners are willing to pay for basically all large and jumbo flake, considering they will not plan on using it all presumably for such purposes - ie. 180k tpa!
As for KNL, the plan is pretty simple - traditional users such as ThyssenKrupp buy the green, orange and red stuff. Our EGT who wants expandable graphite the orange and red, and hopefully Sojitz will progress their MOU to an Offtake for some of the Red and Blue goodness for lithium-ion batteries... Bob's your mother's brother !
All imho and gltah, R
