Investment Perspective: MRF is the most recent, genuine graphene stock to emerge.
It can use the one step electrochemical exfoliation production method to produce high quality, low cost graphene.
MRF sits in contrast with Talga due to its extremely high grade ore, with ROM grades of 90-99% Cg compared to Talga’s expected grade of around 25%.
The benefits of this super grade are compounded by the yield to graphene which has been demonstrated to be 50-80%, whereas Talga has released figures of 2-10%. Put simply, MRF has to move much less ore to achieve sizeable quantities of graphene.
This minimises both capital expenditure outlays and operating costs. It also provides greater flexibility to transport ore to proposed graphene production facilities that can be located on the doorstep of the graphene consuming entities.
MRF will operate at a smaller scale than Talga due to the geometry of its orebody, but this is not an inhibiting factor at the early stage of the development of the graphene sector, as bulk applications are still being developed.
The market is not yet able to absorb substantial quantities of graphene, though the availability of supply will rapidly stimulate demand.
The market has already re-rated Talga in recognition of its exciting potential but MRF has not yet seen its share price appreciate in the same way.
It is time that it did so. Both companies have an exciting future but the spread between their market capitalisations is currently too great.
Competition between the two companies will be to shareholder benefit as each company should be vying for investors’ attention
