Graphite Wars

The Trillion Dollar Battery Race Has A Big Problem - Seite 2

In an effort to domesticate the graphite supply chain for North America's gigafactories, Graphex Group is building a 15,000 tons-per-annum graphite refining facility in the heart of America's auto industry—Detroit—with construction and first production expected in late 2024, subject to typical construction schedule impacts. 

Importantly for investors and for North America's future supply chain, Graphex Group isn't a new player in this game. It already produces 10,000 tons-per-annum of refined graphite in Asia. Now, it's bringing its technology and expertise home in a first for North America. 

Refining graphite is a tricky business, and there is no commercial graphite refining in North America--yet. But Graphex Group has mastered the process. While potential competitors are still in the pilot or lab stage of production, Graphex Group is already commercial and can produce to scale. It's ready to plug and play and feed the Gigafactory demand.

And that timing is now critical, given the massive amount of battery production planned in North America. 

Supply Deals De-Risk North America's First Domestically Refined Graphite

Outside of China, few graphite mines are producing significant quantities. Even fewer are doing any refining—the most profitable aspect of the graphite supply chain--for the EV industry. 

To bring graphite refining home to North America, it is necessary to secure enough raw material, and to avoid regulatory complications and non-compliance with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), that raw material should come from outside of China.  This is the greatest challenge for a North American domestic graphite supply; but Graphex Group appears to have met the challenge. 

In December, Graphex Group (GRFX),  entered into a non-binding LOI (letter of intent) with Northern Graphite Corporation (NGC) to aggregate NCG's raw material supply capabilities with Graphex's proven downstream processing expertise to narrow the supply-demand gap for North America. 

That agreement preceded a much bigger one in January this year that saw Graphex Group and Northern Graphite join forces on the construction of a large-scale graphite processing facility in Quebec's Baie-Comeau region. The partners are now evaluating sites to house a facility that could produce up to 200,000 tons of graphite annually.