"Was reading in Focus's Feasibility Study from the summer that they anticipated revenue of approx $3000/tonne of +50 mesh 92-97% concentrate that could be further processed/refined to 99.9+% Cg. Anyone know what the cost of the further refining was and what their loss was in going from flake to coated spherical graphite. " Been There
We didn't talk cost to produce, as I was interested in hearing up to date range of Battery Grade Prices which seem still stable (8-20K)
On avg I believe consensus estimates of losses for Flake to get to coated spherical graphite is 40%.
Of note in the Focus NR yesterday, which really puts all Synthetic Producers on notice, is that their results after upgrading the 200 mesh fines to 99.95+% but with no further treatment, being uncoated, non-spherical graphite still outperformed the Synthetic Graphite samples in these Coin Cells.
A cautionary, not all Synthetic is created equal either. Conoco Phillips (Dr. Chahar) C-preme graphite was known to be the best in class yet closed operations due to declining margins. Another way of saying this, is at current Battery Grade Synthetic prices, supposidly $20K/tonne sounds good but they were not making money.
Cost to produce,????, I don't know but do know it takes 3-4 months to make the Synthetic Battery grade through a very energy intensive process of heating and cooking the petrolium cokes and enviromentally friendly they are not.
Natural Graphite, whether Flake, Vein or Hydrothermal like ZEN is much cheaper to produce and if the results and specs are better,...Synthetic is in trouble!
Five or six new mines required in N America just for GigaFactory and other demand, like Solar and Home Fuel Cells.
