@indigo the main driver is low graphite pricing and lack of...

@indigo the main driver is low graphite pricing and lack of investment into graphite development outside of China. On the ASX we essentially have a small handful of graphite companies in production.

1. SYR Balama - running at a loss ($5.1m in cash receipts, $13.7m in production costs, ~$9m in staff, admin + corp costs reported in March 24 qtrly)
2. WKT Lindi - started first production in June 24.
3. NVX Synthetic Graphite
4. VRC Zavalievsky Graphite - intermittent production due to war impacts.

I think that's all of them, happy to be corrected.

And there's a long list of companies trying to move into development / production, some further advanced than others.
TLG, RNU, SVM, BKT, MNS, EV1, VRC (Bunyu), EGR, TON, EVG, IG6, GW1, QGL, LML, ITM, BUX, CDT, SGA, KNG etc.

So I don't believe Africa is the issue, given both SYR (Mozambique ) and WKT (Tanzania) are in Africa. The supply is coming from China who are 20 years ahead of the rest and able to produce graphite & downstream products on the cheap, whilst the demand is not sufficient to drive supply shortages or higher prices. This is why recent policy changes by both USA and Europe are vitally important to creating a graphite supply chain outside of China.