What a great article Baddarcy, thanks for sharing it.
So many pearls here, that really apply to RNU at this very moment in time hey.
“It might seem strange that we decided to build the processing plant before the mine, but we really did that to ensure that we could get revenue and cash flow sooner,” Cryan said."
“There’s approximately 17 battery Giga plants under development in the US, and all of those are designed to use graphite as the anode material, and yet here in the United States, we don’t produce any of it,” Cryan said. “We’re trying to stand up a North American battery-grade graphite business in an industry that is completely dominated by China today.”
“Battery manufacturers and OEMs are sincere about wanting to have a supply chain that is environmentally responsible,” he clarified to Fastmarkets after the panel. “We see clear evidence of that in their behavior; they want to know before they do business with us about the particulars of our environmental footprint.”
What so many people posting on here forget is captured in this line:
"Today, all anode material for lithium-ion batteries comes from China, with graphite as the anode material representing about 50% of a lithium-ion battery by weight, he said."
Graphite is 50% of the battery but most don't realise it is only about 10% of the battery cost. So there is plenty of price elasticity for DC to negotiate supply pricing well above what the Chinese have been selling for, without it materially raising the cost of the end product completed battery. You can see the divergence already between product sold in China and that sold in Europe. As the article points out the spread between China and Europe has hit a 5 year high recently,
And now the coming tariffs will help level the price playing field even more for ex-China supply. The automakers have been warned, they have 2 years to sort out their supply or they risk being out of business.
10x
RNU Price at posting:
11.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
