Same fears for graphite, except graphite is a much easier market to supply on account deposits are very large, often regional metamorphic in extent. SYr can't even get their massive graphite mine back into production such is the current supply-demand imbalance and low prices. Balma is a huge deposit and they have never come close to reaching nameplate production because the market has always been well supplied. It's a real conundrum because Balma only gets it's costs per tonne graphite down low enough run flat out, but running the worlds largest graphite mine flat out causes more over-supply and crashes prices... SVM's rutile-graphite mine will eventually be a monster also, except with graphite effectively a zero cost bi-product that graphite will take market share regardless of how low the price goes.
Similar China 'high CO2' synthetic graphite and supply chain risk vs uneconomic western supply that isn;t needed if China keeps selling theirs. Longer term I suspect new battery tech will replace 40 year old graphite anodes with much lighter, faster charging anodes (silica, metal, nano-tech etc) in the chase for ever higher energy density batteries. That substitution away from graphite might take 10 years to fruition, whcih is a dilemma because new mines need 5 years to DFS, build and ramp up, by which time excess graphite supply into falling demand will drop the price just when mines need high prices to repay debt etc.
Some 'experts' say there is a graphite boom coming, but feel's like an Indian Summer to me, and more than a little risky.
HAS Price at posting:
$1.24 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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