SYR Charts, page-1050

I don't believe so Motors. The Canadians are marketing their large size flake at the industrials not the battery makers. Going on what Sentry said about industrial buyers increasing supply from ex-china producers, it makes sense.

The market is holding its breath to see if the re-opening of Balama has the same effect on the supply side as it did when it opened in 2018. I'm not sure if anybody truly knows the natural graphite demand for EV's atm except the Chinese who make 100% of the precursor. Maybe even they don't know given the chip shortage.

We know some traditional car manufacturers have shut or slowed ICE factory's and 2 Chinese EV manufactures. What we don't know is the extent of how many chips the traditional ICE manufacturers are diverting to their EV production and how long it can continue. They're all racing to grab market share and they don't want to give it up because it could have ramifications down the road. Also if the chip shortage is effecting Tesla. They're still the elephant in the room.

On the flip side, battery manufactures should be taking this opportunity to build up their inventory for the high demand they know is coming. Storage might be an issue? The battery manufactures build the skateboards which the car manufactures then use to build 3-6 different models they produce. We also know Tesla is opening up two mega factures from July (Berlin and Texas), GM/LG Chem is opening 1 in Ohio and Ford/SK Innovations in Georgia. There probably are a few smaller ones in Europe in Poland/Hungary.

It's damn confusing trying to distinguish between the Industrial and EV side of the graphite market. Hopefully in 2-3 years it won't matter when the EV side begins to dominate.

I used some of your previous info in a post in INR so thanks for that.