Valence Industries has signed memoranda of understanding for...

Valence Industries has signed memoranda of understanding for graphite volumes exceeding 29,000 tpa over periods between two and three years, CEO Christopher Darby announced this week. Production is being progressively increased at the Uley Graphite plant in South Australia to accommodate this.
The existing plant has a nameplate capacity of 14,000 tpa processed graphite, with a production target of ~8,000 tonnes graphite product in the first year.
The new phase two plant is designed to increase production in stages to 64,000 tpa by 2018-2019, with an initial increase to 39,000 tpa capacity in 2016. Construction of the second phase is expected to commence in Q2 2015. The company is looking at project finance options to support this.
Sales contracts have been signed with six customers in Europe and in the Asia Pacific. The average pricing across full range of traditional flake graphite products is A$1,667/tonne ($1,300/tonne*), said Darby who anticipated a profit of around A$10 million in the first year of operation.