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CHALLENGE","africas-challenge","article/africas-challenge",{"_uid":557,"date":558,"tags":559,"editor":563,"content":573,"excerpt":712,"featured":50,"reporter":713,"_editable":717,"component":718,"seo_title":553,"categories":719,"visibility":726,"author_company":49,"featured_image":727,"seo_description":712,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":732,"formattedArticleDate":733},"6034a602-ed56-4697-9417-e69dee240a04","2019-05-12 00:00",[560],{"slug":561,"name":562},"africa","Africa",[564],{"slug":565,"name":566,"content":567},"matthew-bird","Matthew Bird",{"job_title":568,"image":569,"bio":571,"linkedin":572},"Senior Editor - Supply Chains & Data Visualisation",{"filename":570},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/14738033ec/matthew-bird.jpeg","Matthew writes, edits and produces content for Benchmark Intelligence and Benchmark Source across the whole mine to grid supply chain. He also acts as a liaison to the press. He has a PhD in electrochemistry from the University of Nottingham.","https://www.linkedin.com/in/birdmatthew/",{"type":574,"content":575},"doc",[576,583,588,593,598,603,608,615,620,627,632,639,644,649,654,659,664,669,674,679,686,691,698,703],{"type":577,"attrs":578,"content":579},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[580],{"text":581,"type":582},"An industry dominated by China sees Africa play an increasing role supplying natural flake graphite. How quickly can Africa displace China’s graphite lead?","text",{"type":577,"attrs":584,"content":585},{"textAlign":49},[586],{"text":587,"type":582},"After a successful Q1, Syrah Resources continues to lead the African graphite charge.",{"type":577,"attrs":589,"content":590},{"textAlign":49},[591],{"text":592,"type":582},"Syrah beat its Q1 2019 guidance target of 45,000 tonnes of natural flake graphite for its Balama project in Madagascar, having produced 49,000 tonnes over the quarter. This was achieved despite ultimately misplaced fears that the operation would be affected by the devastating Cyclone Idai.",{"type":577,"attrs":594,"content":595},{"textAlign":49},[596],{"text":597,"type":582},"Over the quarter, production volumes ramped up – with Syrah producing 19,000 tonnes of natural flake in March. This bodes well for the company, which is committed to targeting up to 250,000 tonnes of production in 2019. If this target is reached the mine will account for a significant proportion of the natural flake market, which produced approximately 700,000 tonnes in 2018.",{"type":577,"attrs":599,"content":600},{"textAlign":49},[601],{"text":602,"type":582},"The company is also reporting that cash costs at the Balama project are trending downwards from $550 per tonne to $400 per tonne. This combination of a significant ramp up in production and lower costs is beginning to affect the fundamentals of the market, particularly Chinese producers.",{"type":577,"attrs":604,"content":605},{"textAlign":49},[606],{"text":607,"type":582},"However, although Syrah is achieving low costs it is having to sell its product at notably low prices to compete with Chinese domestic supply.",{"type":577,"attrs":609,"content":610},{"textAlign":49},[611,613],{"text":612,"type":582},"For example, it announced in April that the weighted average price it achieved in Q1 was $469 per tonne. Whereas at the start of the quarter the company was targeting a weighted average CIF price of US$500-600 per tonne for H1",{"text":614,"type":582},"2019, ultimately targeting above $600 over the medium term.",{"type":577,"attrs":616,"content":617},{"textAlign":49},[618],{"text":619,"type":582},"Having made a net loss before income tax of $10.3 million in 2018, questions remain as to how long Syrah can operate at its current price levels.",{"type":577,"attrs":621,"content":622},{"textAlign":49},[623,625],{"text":624,"type":582},"Another, albeit smaller, Madagascan project had positive news in March, with Tirupati Graphite announcing it has begun production at its Sahamamy mine in Madagascar, producing 3,000 tpa. The Indian miner expects to extend this production capacity to 9,000 tpa by the end",{"text":626,"type":582},"of the year and for the mine to ramp up to 21,000 tpa in 2020.",{"type":577,"attrs":628,"content":629},{"textAlign":49},[630],{"text":631,"type":582},"Other development stage African outfits also made promising developments over the quarter.",{"type":577,"attrs":633,"content":634},{"textAlign":49},[635,637],{"text":636,"type":582},"In February, Black Rock Mining’s 100% owned Tanzanian subsidiary Mahenge Resources announced it had been granted mining licenses for the development of its Mahenge Graphite Mine. Black Rock now has 205,000 tonnes of offtake agreements in place, and expects the Mahenge mine to produce 250,000 tonnes per",{"text":638,"type":582},"annum once the project is complete and ramped up.",{"type":577,"attrs":640,"content":641},{"textAlign":49},[642],{"text":643,"type":582},"The company now has three supply agreements in place, signing the latest at the start of the quarter with Taihe Soar, from Dalian, China. The three-year offtake agreement is structured as 37,500 tpa, in year one, 80,000 tpa for year two, and rises to 100,000 to tpa in year three. This adds to the company’s existing offtake agreements with Heilongjiang Bohao and Qingdao Fujin, bringing the total supply deals to 82,500 tpa in year one, 145,000 tpa in year two and the 205,000 tpa in year three.",{"type":577,"attrs":645,"content":646},{"textAlign":49},[647],{"text":648,"type":582},"Also in February, another development stage African miner, Next Source Materials, received mining licenses for its Madagascan Molo Graphite Project. The company is targeting production in 2020, with 17,000 tpa in phase 1 of the project.",{"type":577,"attrs":650,"content":651},{"textAlign":49},[652],{"text":653,"type":582},"It’s not just African development stage companies to have met milestones during the quarter, in February the Canadian based Nouveau Monde signed a 25,000 tpa five-year offtake agreement with Traxys after an initial two-year period where Traxys will market 200 tonnes of Nouveau Monde’s product for customer prequalification.",{"type":577,"attrs":655,"content":656},{"textAlign":49},[657],{"text":658,"type":582},"SHIFTING FOUNDATIONS",{"type":577,"attrs":660,"content":661},{"textAlign":49},[662],{"text":663,"type":582},"These developments are likely to have an impact on Chinese natural flake producers as a low-cost production feedstock base is being established in Africa. Throughout the quarter these new natural flake graphite supplies from Africa have accelerated the changes developing in the supply structure of the market.",{"type":577,"attrs":665,"content":666},{"textAlign":49},[667],{"text":668,"type":582},"Chinese suppliers have begun to acknowledge that new supplies from Mozambique and Madagascar are beginning to compete with Chinese suppliers with low cost and often higher quality feedstock.",{"type":577,"attrs":670,"content":671},{"textAlign":49},[672],{"text":673,"type":582},"These changes are showing in China’s import statistics. In 2018, the consequences of growing African supply led to China becoming a major flake graphite importer for the first time in a generation, with flake volumes over 60,000 for the year over a period which also saw a fall of 12% in Chinese exports.",{"type":577,"attrs":675,"content":676},{"textAlign":49},[677],{"text":678,"type":582},"This has continued into 2019. For example, import data shows that in February 2019 China imported approximately 13,500 tonnes of flake graphite from Mozambique – namely from Syrah’s Balama project. This is a sizeable increase as it is only a few tonnes less than the amount imported from Mozambique for the entire final quarter of 2018.",{"type":577,"attrs":680,"content":681},{"textAlign":49},[682,684],{"text":683,"type":582},"Over the course of the year as this story",{"text":685,"type":582},"unfolds we expect a number of smaller Chinese operations to be displaced by African suppliers and we are potentially on course for China to become a net importer of flake graphite for the first time. The pressure being exerted by low-cost African producers on Chinese companies could lead to much Chinese supply going to international industrial markets.",{"type":577,"attrs":687,"content":688},{"textAlign":49},[689],{"text":690,"type":582},"China’s natural flake graphite production may be at risk of competition but there is little prospect of its spherical graphite production being affected by international developments.",{"type":577,"attrs":692,"content":693},{"textAlign":49},[694,696],{"text":695,"type":582},"China’s spherical graphite production has",{"text":697,"type":582},"continued to increase, and with demand growth continuing, China will continue its dominance as the value-added graphite supplier throughout H1 and for the foreseeable future.",{"type":577,"attrs":699,"content":700},{"textAlign":49},[701],{"text":702,"type":582},"In January and February spherical graphite exports from China were reported to be 10,000 tonnes, with exports up 18% compared with the first two months of 2019.",{"type":577,"attrs":704,"content":705},{"textAlign":49},[706,708,710],{"text":707,"type":582},"Figures coming out of China should be treated scepticism, but ",{"text":709,"type":582},"Benchmark ",{"text":711,"type":582},"has spoken to industry sources who are expecting to see spherical graphite exports increase throughout the year.","An industry dominated by China sees Africa play an increasing role supplying natural flake graphite. How quickly can Africa displace China’s graphite lead? After a successful Q1, Syrah Resources continues to lead the African graphite charge. Syrah beat its Q1 2019 guidance target of 45,000 tonnes of natural flake graphite for its Balama project in […]",[714],{"slug":565,"name":566,"content":715},{"job_title":568,"image":716,"bio":571,"linkedin":572},{"filename":570},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"6034a602-ed56-4697-9417-e69dee240a04\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[720,723],{"slug":721,"name":722},"batteries","Batteries",{"slug":724,"name":725},"critical-minerals","Critical Minerals","private",{"id":49,"alt":728,"name":728,"focus":728,"title":728,"source":728,"filename":729,"copyright":728,"fieldtype":730,"meta_data":731,"is_external_url":51},"","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/164ce448b5/bm-dsc-0234.jpg","asset",{"alt":728,"title":728,"source":728,"copyright":728},"May 12, 2019","12th May 2019",[],[],1792773943076]