Hi Paul7890,
I am in the middle of some work but I will write a quick note for you:
The main costs involved in graphite production is both in the mining of the raw material and the main expense in this lithium battery industry, being not so much the graphite material but also in the purification process to take it to a higher purity for use in the battery. With a basic flotation companies may achieve different purity levels without any processing. The lower the initial purity of the graphite, the more purification required to achieve battery grade.
Magnis have sourced the highest purity with flotation which means it requires the least amount of purification to achieve 99.95%+ battery grade. Companies vary on their initial purification results. Approx: China 96%TGC, Syrah approx 96.6%TGC , Magnis approx 99.4%TGC at flotation. Thereafter it requires purification processes which may include thermal purification (heating) or chemical purification. Magnis is the only company in the world to achieve 99.99% spherical graphite without chemical purification, which is an expensive process and has major environmental impacts.
China currently accounts for 80%+ of all natural graphite used in lithium batteries and end-users are looking for an alternative. Here is the problem with graphite out of China of which all use chemical purification:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/graphite-mining-pollution-in-china/
I recommend the following:
*Magnis August 2016 Presentation with Audio and slides by Frank Poullos. Very informative!
http://www.sydneyminingclub.org/presentations/2016/august/magnis/index.html
*Also check out these links:
http://magnis.com.au/graphite/graphite-industry
http://magnis.com.au/announcements/significant-news
*Also google:
Seeking Alpha Natural graphite - Seeking Alpha have some good reads!
Hope I understood the context of your question mate! cheers
(20min delay)