The volume in the graphite market is dominated by amorphous,...

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FiendishRedbeard

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03/09/17

21:00

Post #: 26964384
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Originally posted by DoctorFouad ↑

"Graphite is not rare"

That is an over-simplification. Amorpheous graphite and small flakes graphite are super abundant, however larger flakes graphite are rare in nature. For instance, 35mesh+ sizes (called super jumbo flakes >500 microns) are EXTREMELY RARE in nature (they make less than 5% of most graphite deposits).

What makes the 35mesh+ flakes even rarer is that processing the graphite in order to achieve high purities (96%+ cg) (through grinding) destroys the size of the larger flakes. Therefore, when considering the low recovery rates of non-destroyed 35mesh+ flakes, they become even more scarce in the market than they are already in nature.

To the best of my knowledge, Madagascar is the country with graphite deposits containing the highest large flakes percentage in the world, followed by Tanzania. (Mozambique contains the largest deposit of graphite in the world owned by Syrah, but it is mostly small to medium flakes).

For those interested, Bass Metals (BSM) is refurbishing/expanding a mine in Madagascar that contains (again to the best of my knowledge) the highest large flakes content of any other existing or in-develoment mine in the world (90%+ large flakes in nature, and more than 71% recoverable large flakes after processing, a greater than 16% of the graphite is recoverable in the form of the super rare super jumbo flakes).

Large flakes command the highest prices in the market, the larger the flakes the higher the price.

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The volume in the graphite market is dominated by amorphous, small and medium flake. Current market for jumbo flakes is exactly three fifths of five eights of stuff all. The larger the flake the smaller the volume and higher marketing , product and competion risk so I wouldn't touch this or be quoting prices.
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