Evening All,
Following on from Yesterdays Post Regarding Graphite Anode Demand by 2030 to service current battery capacity plans of 5.86TWh. I spent the day going over last weeks Battery Megafactories Conference in Europe.
The Team at Benchmark Minerals as well as the many company presenters touched on similar trends that are emerging in the battery minerals sector.
Firstly, Battery Megafactory plans are being announced so frequently that by the time a company publishes data, it is out of date a fortnight later. On average a new factory is announced every 5-6 days.
Current 2030 demand is tracking on 5.86TWh and increasing
Knowing the overall battery demand then leads to the question of how much critical raw materials are required to come online to meet that demand ? A question that can vary given the various battery chemistries that exist today, as well as consideration for what chemistries will be in vogue over the coming years.
I have read on HotCopper a few people make a similar statement over the past few months "Synthetic Graphite will make Flake Obsolete" "Flake Graphite has 5-10 years max left". I am often amazed how many armchair experts exist on HC and how they seem to know more than the experts at Benchmark + Roskill etc Maybe I should cancel my subscriptions and just subscribe to the HC experts moving forward
What the experts are clearly highlighting is that
Natural Flake Graphite demand will overtake Synthetic Graphite Demand by 2027 and that gap will only continue to widen for the remainder of the Decade
Anyone who has followed Benchmark over the past 12 months would have heard Simon and Team utilise the term "The Great Raw Material Disconnect". This essentially refers to the in balance between supply and demand for battery minerals that is growing wider every time a new battery factory is announced or built.
For Graphite Specifically, we know that the world requires approximately 6.1Mtpa of Graphite Anode Material by 2030. The Team at Benchmark have tracked the developments of each graphite project globally, have accounted for increased supply from current producers and are still expecting that the
world is going to be short by 40% and this is based on todays forecast of 5.86TWh (This may only grow wider)
My Final Note from reviewing the conference last week that is relevant to Renascor and the Graphite Sector as a whole was in relation to the location of current raw material projects, more importantly the security of those locations and the overall ESG credentials of that particular country.
The image below highlights two things:
1) Apart from Cobalt which the vast majority of global Cobalt supply comes from Tier 3 risky projects in Central Africa.
Global Graphite Security and ESG credentials is considered a much bigger risk to western countries in comparison to Lithium or Nickel; and
2)
Renascor Located in a Tier 1 Safe, Stable, Secure Mining Jurisdiction like Australia is in Pole Position to Benefit supplying other Western Nations moving forward in comparison to 3/4 qtrs of global graphite supply which is considered to be from Non-Tier 1 Countries Such as Africa
GLTAHs as we enter what shapes to be a pretty special upcoming Q2 for RNU
