RE:RE:RE:new picture of the demo plantMojo is right. Commercial operations will be optimized and thus the concentrator won’t be too far from the pit. As what stated in the newspaper article recently, they are looking at coming up with all-electric operations which will allow for much likely the lowest environmental footprint of the graphite industry. This is a noble goal, but management is cognizant that it can’t be achieved at the detriment of a competitive opex.
For the demo plant, the company was able to cheaply rent out the former LP plant for 3 years. The availability of this plant will allow them to produce 1000 tonnes of flake graphite and 250 tonnes of advanced products such as purified spherical graphite for li-ion anodes and expanded graphite. This is the expected production per year for the next two years. Renting this plant cheaply, selling the production and likely getting grants attached to innovative processes and such should allow them to go through the demo plant without breaking the bank. Much like Nemaska Lithium did, they expect the demo plant to lead them to signing offtake agreements when they can demonstrate the quality of their materials and their abilities to meet specs.