General Discussion, page-1493

Hi @LJSM

Yes, that is an interesting podcast which touches on but does not really delve into the whole conundrum of the graphite industry. Everyone (miners, producers, investors, financiers and governments) knows what needs to happen to move the whole battery supply chain away from China but are currently incapable of making it happen because basically it's just not financially viable to try and compete.The two stories in the podcast are :-

Westwater Resources

This company with which Syrah has a graphite supply agreement took the gutsy decision back in 2022 to start building a battery anode plant in Alabama without either a signed offtake agreement or financing. A no brainer they thought, just build it and there is a ready market waiting for us.

They had plenty of cash on hand to get started and thought the financing would easily fall into place but in May 2023 it all came to a halt because no one wanted to finance a plant which is not going to be profitable. Subsequently they signed an MOU with SK On so they found their market but a year later they still do not have the money to complete the plant.

RNU in Australia are in a similar but opposite position, they have the finance for their mine courtesy of our government but no ex China battery anode producer available to buy their product.

Northern Graphite Corporation

Hugues Jaquemin, the other proponent in the podcast, is the CEO of this Canadian company. I’m a big fan, he is everywhere promoting his company, you would never find a more knowledgeable, capable and enthusiastic leader. They believed big time in the future of graphite and invested heavily but events since have not been conducive to success. Here is an analysis of their operations.

Despite having the only operating graphite mine in North America and another in care and maintenance in Namibia plus advanced plans for a 200kta anode plant and representing everything that the US DOE supposedly wants to achieve this company has a market capital of only US$16 million and despite his enthusiasm in the podcast without being bailed out soon will likely collapse.

The Supply Chain Problem

There is currently a giant disconnect between the hype and the reality of the natural graphite industry as far as the battery anode market is concerned.

China produces 97% of the worlds USPG and they have sufficient supply of graphite from their own mines in China and new ones they are developing themselves in Africa to be able to exclude everyone else from the supply chain.

There are anode plants in construction in South Korea (POSCO) and Indonesia (BTR) and of course Vidalia, and a whole raft of other projects wanting to get started but stalled for want of finance. This Is both the bottleneck that Syrah currently faces but also the future opportunity because while battery anode plants will eventually come online I don’t believe that any other ex China graphite mines will emerge unless and until this company is successful.