RE:RE:Interesting new article on SyrahSTACK ... the info you asked for is below ... after reading the articel I get the sense that Syrah resources have not formulated a North American plan .... which leaves me to believe Syrah Resources could indeed be a potential acquisitor of Alabama Graphite should Alabama's graphite prove itself worthy for battery use ... all the best in 2016 ....
Syrah Resources New Mine Set to Disprupt Global Graphite Market The Australian
2 January 2016
Barry Fitzgerald
Resource Editor
Melbourne Australia
Rarely if ever does an ASX-listed company work its way into a position of being able to turn the market in a particular commodity on its head.
But that is what is set to happen in the 2016 December quarter when Melbourne’s Syrah Resources flicks the switch on its world-class Balama graphite mine in Mozambique.
Planned first-year production from the $US145 million ($198m) project is 270,000 tonnes, tiny in the bulk materials commodities world of iron and coal, but huge in the world of graphite.
The output will account for 20 per cent of the world market for the carbon product, the price of which was under pressure in 2015 because of weakness in one of its key markets, steel.
But because of the expected low cost of production from what will be the world’s biggest single producer of graphite concentrates, the fall in prices from $US1000 a tonne in 2014 to $US850 a tonne (for material less than 100 mesh and grading 94-97 per cent carbon) is not an issue for the $860m Syrah.
How it manages its entry in to what is an opaque market is more of a challenge, something Syrah has sought to de-risk through the signing of offtake agreements.
The plan is to have 70 per cent of the first year’s production covered by sales agreements from a mixture of traditional customers (refractories, foundry, lubricants and friction products), and the new-technology markets. The balance will be sold via spot sales.
But it is the new-technology market — essentially the lithium-ion battery (LiB) boom — to which Syrah really wants to hitch its wagon.
Producing graphite concentrates for myriad end users in the traditional markets for the material is one thing. Planning to use it as a base from which to plug into the boom demand for LiBs for use in electric vehicles (mainly cars and bicycles), and the energy storage market (to optimise solar panel/wind power generation, and for grid and off-grid storage solutions) is another altogether given the supercharged forecast growth in demand.
Becoming an end-to-end supplier to battery makers of the high-value spherical coated graphite used in LiBs — it is selling for $US6000-$US10,000 a tonne — is where Syrah’s bustling managing director Tolga Kumova has the company headed.
Mr Kumova has allowed himself a short festive season break at his grandparent’s hazelnut farm on Turkey’s Black Sea coast before returning in the new year to make the end-to-end strategy happen.
It will require an eventual commitment to building a battery grade graphite plant, with the likely location being in the US.
No commitments have been made yet — getting Balama up and running for first shipments in early 2017 is the priority. But Kumova expects progress on the US plan should become clear by mid-2016.
He told The Weekend Australian that Syrah was busy on “understanding exactly what the battery manufacturers want, and how they want it’’.
“The idea is to fit into their business plan,’’ Mr Kumova said.
About half of Balama’s production will be less than 100 mesh material, the starting point in a processing route for the graphite to become a critical component in LiBs.
High purity graphite is processed into coated spherical graphite and used in the negatively charged anode.
The upside in the value-add LiB business case compared with Balama as a raw material play was highlighted by Macquarie in a report in which it initiated coverage of Syrah, valuing it at $5.33 a share ($1.23 billion).
The battery grade plant being pursued by Syrah was valued at $602m, or more than the actual Balama operation now being built by the company.
The higher value reflects the rumblings of the LiB boom. Macquarie expects demand for spherical graphite to grow at a compound annual rate of 40 per cent over the next five years as LiB production ramps up to supply the electric vehicle and stationary storage market.
“On our demand projections we expect a large and sustained supply gap to open over the coming years,’’ Macquarie said.
While there are plenty of graphite producers, and plenty of battery producers, there is currently only one integrated graphite-to-battery grade group.
It is a Chinese group. And it is China that produces about 70 per cent of the world’s graphite supply, and 100 per cent of spherical graphite supply.
Syrah is out to break that stranglehold.
“Although we see China as likely to continue to dictate pricing in the near term we see supply diversification as a key driver supporting the development of ex-China resources and something that could also lead to the development of a secondary premium market,’’ Macquarie said.
There is a synthetic alternative for battery makers but it costs three times as much as material derived from natural graphite.