Thanks Gaz. Was chasing any news on anode manufacturing...

Thanks Gaz. Was chasing any news on anode manufacturing expansion plans in China or anywhere else.

Producing natural v synthetic AAM is chalk and cheese. Completely different manufacturing process. They have to heat coke to 2000 degrees for 3 days to produce synthetic graphite so the power used and the cost is astronomical. It's about 6-8x more expensive to produce synthetic v natural.

The last paragraph was interesting. Article was posted on the 8th of June 2021
Argus today assessed domestic prices for 94pc grade graphite flake stable at Yn3,200-3,800/t ex-works today and export prices at $500-520/t fob China, as producers maintained their offer prices because of firm demand from the downstream lithium-ion anode material industry. - If true, the price has come down a little.

I also found another article on the same website
Base metal miner First Quantum is selling a 30pc stake of its Ravensthorpe nickel-cobalt mine in Australia to Korean steelmaker Posco, which is expanding into battery materials.

Posco is Korea's largest steelmaker but has expanded into cathode materials through its partially owned subsidiary Posco Chemical. It offers nickel-cobalt-manganese and lithium-manganese-oxide cathodes as well as graphite anodes.

Posco Chemical operates factories in Korea and China that combine to make 44,000 t/yr of cathode material. By 2030, Posco Chemical plans to expand capacity to 260,000 t/yr of cathode material and 400,000 t/yr of anode material globally. WOW. So there is definitely movement in the AAM production space.

This was on another website : https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/graphite-market-to-hit-36-889-1-mn-revenue-by-2030-ps-intelligence-301233102.html

The increasing demand for Li-ion batteries is propelling the graphite market because the anode (negative terminal) of such energy storage devices is made of graphite. Compared to lithium, such batteries need up to 20 times more graphite, as more graphite means availability of more current to flow between the two terminals. Li-ion batteries for hybrid electric vehicles require 10 kg, while for a battery electric vehicle (BEV), 70 kg of graphite is required.

Major players in the global graphite market include HEG Ltd., SGL Carbon SE, Showa Denko K.K., GrafTech International Ltd., Syrah Resources Ltd., Graphite India Ltd., Tokai Carbon Co. Ltd., Shanshan Corporation, Qingdao Guangxing Electronic Materials Co. Ltd., and Fangda Carbon New Material Technology Co. Ltd. - another mention for a different publication