Graphite 101

WKT has graphite and is now using diamond drilling and another 200m of RC to develop a preliminary resource model. The scale, flake size and purity of economic graphite ore for processing will determine how much this stock is re-rated.

Researching graphite to for my own education and thought I'd share with the HC faithful and holders of this stock more specifically.

I found a good link with info (2013 prices);

Graphite 101: http://www.focusgraphite.com/technology/

	Column 1	Column 2
0	Type of Natural Graphite	Average Price ($/tonne January 2013
1	Small Flake (95% – 98%	$900 – $1,200
2	Medium Flake (95% – 98%)	$1,050 – $1,400
3	Large Flake (95% – 98%)	$1,400 – $1,800
4	Jumbo Flake (95% – 98%)	>$1,600
5	Battery Grade Flake (99.9%)	$5,000 – $20,000

And again from the site;
Four key factors for economic graphite deposits:

"In today’s world, graphite is considered a key,

• Flake size
• Grade
• Purity
• Purification costs

Flake graphite is a naturally occurring form of graphite that is typically found as discrete flakes ranging in size from small, medium to large mesh. Large flake size is generally needed for high purity, technology grade graphite."

Interesting to focus on 'large flake'

"Pricing
Graphite prices are a function of 2 factors – flake size and purity – with large flake (+80 mesh), high Carbon (+94%) varieties commanding premium pricing."

From the WKT announcement;
"Flake sizes observed are generally large with spectacular jumbo flakes visible in the massive graphite zones "
and
"All of the drillholes in the target zones intersected multiple shallow and wide graphite layers, often massive in nature and displaying flakes > 1mm. "

Note the MESH comment.

From http://www.netafimusa.com/files/literature/wastewater/Mesh-vs-Micron.pdf you will see that +80 Mesh equates to 0.177mm which is almost SIX TIMES smaller than 1mm.

This tells me that the quality of the deposit is high, and after the DD tests are completed the CARBON CONTENT (see Purity above) will be.

It's too early to know the recovery for this deposit though it can be estimated from graphite companies that are listed on exchanges.