SYR "pushed against an open door" in China

Very interesting comments from John de Vries of Black Rock Mining, a company with a graphite project in Tanzania:

RS: What is happening in the graphite markets at the moment - we've obviously had the very significant inauguration this month of a major graphite mine outside China, in Syrah Resources' Balama operation in Mozambique?
JdV: There are a couple of interesting dynamics in the market at the moment. A fair portion of Chinese industry production remains cut due to environmental concerns. The environmental concerns around graphite in China are exactly the same concerns as those around low-grade iron ore. So, we've seen that same preference by Chinese industry for higher quality graphite which was obviously well timed because Syrah has come in there and pushed against an open door. Syrah has been able to fill the void left by the Chinese which is in the market for small, lower grade flake.
Quite a few of us were expecting some sort of Armageddon event for graphite prices and it has not eventuated. We're yet to see Syrah's prices which will come out in its quarterly report, that will make interesting reading.
But what we're seeing certainly in spot prices is that they haven't been as bad as they could have been.
At the higher end of the market there is this increasing geopolitical tension around product supply for the [EV/broader consumer] battery market, and other high-value uses. If you do have an environment in which significant trade barriers start to reappear, control and access to that raw material is going to be important. And if you've got a deposit that is truly much better than its peers - think the Tom Price and Mt Whaleback of the iron ore world - and you're able to deal higher up in the product chain, that starts to get to be very strategic in terms of the geopolitical environment you're working in.

From: http://www.mining-journal.com/resou...ourcestocks-q-john-de-vries-black-rock-mining