Graphex Group, Northern Graphite partner in graphite facility site evaluations

Graphex Group’s U.S. subsidiary Graphex Technologies and Northern Graphite announced that Graphex will participate in Northern’s selection process for a site suitable for the construction of a large-scale graphite processing facility in Baie-Comeau. The plant is planned to supply coated spherical graphite anode material to the EV/battery markets in North America and beyond. On December 21, 2022 Northern and Graphex announced the signing of a non-binding letter of intent to negotiate a joint venture agreement to build a North American mine-to-battery supply chain. Northern and Graphex will work with the Department of Innovation and Development for the Manicouagan/Baie-Comeau region of Quebec to identify and evaluate sites that could accommodate processing facilities to produce up to 200,000 tons per year of battery anode material where they could conduct their proposed joint venture. The current supply picture for natural graphite in North America is marked both by a significant shortfall in the availability of non-China-sourced graphite raw material that is needed to meet projected demand, and the complete absence of experienced commercial-scale downstream processing to transform that raw material into battery-grade anode material. The collaboration between Northern and Graphex seeks to solve both issues on an industry-wide level by providing OEMs and battery makers with a transparent, ESG compliant supply of quality product needed to meet current and future demand. Northern owns the only graphite mine producing at commercial scale in North America, with a current output of 15,000 tpy of graphite mine concentrate. It also has three development projects with the resources to produce over 100,000 tpy by 2025 and 300,000 tpy by 2027.