Graphite feels like the same story as REE's 3 years ago. China...

Graphite feels like the same story as REE's 3 years ago. China hold >80% stranglehold over the market and keep spot price down and defend it at all costs to keep western players out of the market. They do this with standby synthetic graphite which is usually more expensive to produce, but cheaper pet. coke and energy prices means cost is catching up to natural graphite sources. Important to note synthetic quality is still below that of naturally derived BAM material and these cheaper feedstocks wont be around forever.

The west has deemed graphite a critical mineral and obviosuly wants to mover away from supply chains in China, so there is incentives to move away from the opaque Chinese graphite market. But we really need to see western offtakers that are willing to pay above the China manipulated spot price for 'greener' ESG friendly western graphite like RNU and ITM (IMO). To me, ITM's fate is almost entirely within RNU's hands to get deals/offtakes across the line.