Daz08 Saying the graphite industry is doomed is a little...

Daz08

Saying the graphite industry is doomed is a little exaggerated.

The Ancuabe project consists of high purity, large flake graphite for flame retardant materials. This is a niche market and is in greater demand than the finer graphite used in lithium batteries.

China is running out of the larger flake and relies mostly on imports. That is why they are interested in Ancuabe. The article also mentions the prices for the higher quality graphite has increased around 5 to 10 percent year to date.

The other problem China faces is the stricter environmental regulations and the desire to close graphite mines across the country. Another reason why they are interested in the Ancuabe. Why would they invest $19M with no purpose?

Annually alone, china needs 40 million tonnes of flame-retardant building material which contains 5% expandable graphite. That's 2 million tonnes of expandable graphite required just by China construction industry.

That is more than 10 times greater demand than existing natural graphite demand from the lithium-ion battery industry.​

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