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are ready to pay the price needed to finance projects.” Q&A with Nouveau Monde CEO Eric Desaulniers","oems-are-ready-to-pay-the-price-needed-to-finance-projects-qa-with-nouveau-monde-ceo-eric-desaulniers","article/oems-are-ready-to-pay-the-price-needed-to-finance-projects-qa-with-nouveau-monde-ceo-eric-desaulniers",{"_uid":557,"date":558,"tags":559,"editor":563,"content":573,"excerpt":774,"featured":50,"reporter":775,"_editable":779,"component":780,"seo_title":553,"categories":781,"visibility":787,"author_company":49,"featured_image":788,"seo_description":774,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":792,"formattedArticleDate":793},"ca2ff3d7-29e8-411e-b4ec-1982f4c4f19a","2024-01-10 00:00",[560],{"slug":561,"name":562},"qa","Q&A",[564],{"slug":565,"name":566,"content":567},"didi-bostock","Didi Bostock",{"job_title":568,"image":569,"bio":571,"linkedin":572},"Editor - Energy Transition & Economics",{"filename":570},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/2c5ca5c1a3/didi-bostock.jpeg","Didi is the Energy Transition & Economics Editor at Benchmark, covering a broad range of markets across the energy transition. His remit spans from downstream sectors such as BESS and EVs, through to midstream such as new technologies and battery production, to upstream critical minerals mining. He also leads on financial analysis across these supply chains, alongside in-depth policy analysis.\n","https://www.linkedin.com/in/didi-bostock-656342198/",{"type":574,"content":575},"doc",[576,593,598,603,608,613,628,633,638,650,655,660,673,682,687,692,697,702,707,714,719,724,729,734,739,744,749,754,759,771],{"type":577,"attrs":578,"content":579},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[580,583,591],{"text":581,"type":582},"Montreal-based Nouveau Monde Graphite could become one of the largest integrated producers of natural graphite and ","text",{"text":584,"type":582,"marks":585},"anode products",[586],{"type":587,"attrs":588},"link",{"href":589,"uuid":49,"anchor":49,"target":49,"linktype":590},"https://www.benchmarkminerals.com/forecasts/anode/","url",{"text":592,"type":582}," in North America. ",{"type":577,"attrs":594,"content":595},{"textAlign":49},[596],{"text":597,"type":582},"The company aims to produce 42,000 tonnes a year of anode materials at a facility in Bécancour, using graphite from its nearby Matawinie mine. ",{"type":577,"attrs":599,"content":600},{"textAlign":49},[601],{"text":602,"type":582},"Battery producer Panasonic Energy has been testing the company’s anode active material over the past year, and the two companies hope to sign a final offtake agreement soon. ",{"type":577,"attrs":604,"content":605},{"textAlign":49},[606],{"text":607,"type":582},"A geophysicist by trade, chief executive Eric Desaulniers discovered the Matawinie graphite deposit after doing aerial surveys of the area using helicopters near where he lived some 90 miles north of Montreal. ",{"type":577,"attrs":609,"content":610},{"textAlign":49},[611],{"text":612,"type":582},"Benchmark Source sat down with him to learn more. Below is an edited transcript of the discussion. ",{"type":614,"attrs":615,"content":617},"heading",{"level":616,"textAlign":49},4,[618,620,626],{"text":619,"type":582},"Have you seen a flurry of interest since China announced some ",{"text":621,"type":582,"marks":622},"export restrictions",[623],{"type":587,"attrs":624},{"href":625,"uuid":49,"anchor":49,"target":49,"linktype":590},"https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/article/china-graphite-export-restrictions-could-hinder-ex-china-anode-development",{"text":627,"type":582}," on graphite products last year? ",{"type":577,"attrs":629,"content":630},{"textAlign":49},[631],{"text":632,"type":582},"We’ve been working a long time with Panasonic … They understand that it’s imperative to build a supply chain locally. So with Panasonic there’s not much change – they’re already convinced that they need to do that. We have already had advanced discussions with a few large tier one [battery manufacturers] as well. But I would say it’s all the others: we had over 10 different enquiries from even Chinese companies, but also smaller OEMs. All of them suddenly realised that they were relying on China for the next few years to come. And now they need to make a plan B. So I see a pickup in enquiries and the demand for discussion.",{"type":614,"attrs":634,"content":635},{"level":616,"textAlign":49},[636],{"text":637,"type":582},"The price impact of the restrictions has so far been quite muted, why is that? ",{"type":577,"attrs":639,"content":640},{"textAlign":49},[641,643,648],{"text":642,"type":582},"That is simply because all transactions occur in China for graphite, so there’s not much going on outside China. So even Panasonic they purchase in China. So there’s not many OEMs yet that are purchasing from outside suppliers. So for sure, imagine you’re in China and suddenly your government is ",{"text":644,"type":582,"marks":645},"restricting you",[646],{"type":587,"attrs":647},{"href":625,"uuid":49,"anchor":49,"target":49,"linktype":590},{"text":649,"type":582},". It’s more difficult for you to export. So there’s suddenly more supply within China. So I’m not surprised that prices in China will stay where they are for … hopefully not so long. Because at some point, we need the price in China to be better for us to increase our price here. But I think OEMs understand that they need to pay the price for being outside China. ",{"type":614,"attrs":651,"content":652},{"level":616,"textAlign":49},[653],{"text":654,"type":582},"Are we going to see a two-tiered pricing system then?",{"type":577,"attrs":656,"content":657},{"textAlign":49},[658],{"text":659,"type":582},"Because there’s two different markets, for sure. Because inside China, there’s an oversupply, and there’s an undersupply from suppliers outside China. Now that the geopolitics and all the rules of this new economy are making two different worlds, two different markets, we need to do the supply and demand analysis for North America. ",{"type":577,"attrs":661,"content":662},{"textAlign":49},[663,665,671],{"text":664,"type":582},"And it’s clear we are undersupplied here in North America so pricing will be higher. And also here with our standards it’s also imperative that we build this with the highest ESG standard. And the same quality – I would not brag that we have better quality than the Chinese. The Chinese are established, they know what the customer wants and the customer wants just exactly the same thing. I mean at the exact same quality but at a much higher ESG standard located in a market that is under supplied in North America. For sure we expect ",{"text":666,"type":582,"marks":667},"higher pricing",[668],{"type":587,"attrs":669},{"href":670,"uuid":49,"anchor":49,"target":49,"linktype":590},"https://www.benchmarkminerals.com/price-assessments/anode/portal/",{"text":672,"type":582}," to build more projects.",{"type":577,"attrs":674,"content":675},{"textAlign":49},[676],{"type":677,"attrs":678},"image",{"id":49,"alt":679,"src":680,"title":49,"source":49,"copyright":49,"meta_data":681},"","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/2a3e946310/bm-image-93-134406225c98.png",{},{"type":614,"attrs":683,"content":684},{"level":616,"textAlign":49},[685],{"text":686,"type":582},"You’ve talked about signing multi-year offtakes using “flexible pricing” mechanisms, can you talk a bit more about this?",{"type":577,"attrs":688,"content":689},{"textAlign":49},[690],{"text":691,"type":582},"When you build a project of this magnitude and it’s not fully financed by the government you need to have equity holders. And equity holders have an expected return to take a risk. It’s a [pricing] formula that makes the equity holders happy to invest today with the expectation of higher return in the future and also the lenders happy about certainty of having a minimum pricing. ",{"type":577,"attrs":693,"content":694},{"textAlign":49},[695],{"text":696,"type":582},"So I think we’re building a very strong, long term offtake formula that would be good for both the offtaker, to make sure they can forecast their future pricing and having availability of volumes, but also good for all our stakeholders internally. And also for the governments who want to create jobs so they need to play a role with the right incentive package and the right financial support. And we’re glad and in Quebec and Canada we have this government that understands this. ",{"type":577,"attrs":698,"content":699},{"textAlign":49},[700],{"text":701,"type":582},"I cannot go into details, but it will have a floor but no ceiling. A ceiling makes it impossible for an equity holder to invest. So there’s other concepts that will need to be developed. ",{"type":577,"attrs":703,"content":704},{"textAlign":49},[705],{"text":706,"type":582},"What we do know is how much will it cost to build our project and what is the minimum return on this project, and what floor price we need for the lenders to be happy to lend us the money. And what I can tell you is the OEMs now are ready to pay the price needed to finance projects and even though the equity holders are not super happy about the low price environment we’re in, they understand the future upside of graphite. So I think we have the right formula now to make everyone happy – or everyone unhappy enough but happy enough to sign the contract. ",{"type":577,"attrs":708,"content":709},{"textAlign":49},[710],{"type":677,"attrs":711},{"id":49,"alt":679,"src":712,"title":49,"source":49,"copyright":49,"meta_data":713},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/a0161217e8/bm-naturalgraphiteprices2023.png",{},{"type":614,"attrs":715,"content":716},{"level":616,"textAlign":49},[717],{"text":718,"type":582},"You’ve said you won’t use hydrofluoric acid like they do in China for processing. What are the results so far for your process? ",{"type":577,"attrs":720,"content":721},{"textAlign":49},[722],{"text":723,"type":582},"What we’re doing is using energy with chlorine gas to purify graphite – because of our energy profile, here in Quebec. What we’re doing would not be possible in the high energy cost environment like in most of China. But the results are very good. So we’re very fortunate to have developed this process and we’ve been running it for close to two years now. So we’re ready to build a commercial scale project.",{"type":577,"attrs":725,"content":726},{"textAlign":49},[727],{"text":728,"type":582},"We announced last year that we received a very good deal from Hydro Quebec [electricity provider.] And the Quebec government is one of our largest shareholders. So we’re very aligned. ",{"type":614,"attrs":730,"content":731},{"level":616,"textAlign":49},[732],{"text":733,"type":582},"What is the timeline for anode production of anode materials at Becancourt? ",{"type":577,"attrs":735,"content":736},{"textAlign":49},[737],{"text":738,"type":582},"We’re talking about FID [Final Investment Decision] plus 31 months would be a good expectation. That’s what we’re working on. If FID is in six months you can add 31 months to that. ",{"type":614,"attrs":740,"content":741},{"level":616,"textAlign":49},[742],{"text":743,"type":582},"Will we see bigger companies become involved in graphite? ",{"type":577,"attrs":745,"content":746},{"textAlign":49},[747],{"text":748,"type":582},"One thing that nobody is talking about is when the large miners will get involved in graphite. Today there’s not many commodities of this magnitude. Graphite is getting bigger in terms of market, but there’s no major out there. So there’s no big miners who can really develop this by themselves. So I think at some point, those guys will want to play, they won’t leave this growing market to juniors. They need to start playing ball. In the next five years we should see major companies look at graphite assets. ",{"type":614,"attrs":750,"content":751},{"level":616,"textAlign":49},[752],{"text":753,"type":582},"Can you tell us a bit about how you discovered this Matawinie deposit? ",{"type":577,"attrs":755,"content":756},{"textAlign":49},[757],{"text":758,"type":582},"I’m a geophysicist, that was the only thing I knew in life. Even from 2009 to 2012 I was doing airborne geophysics on my own. That was my own little company and I had a partner who was a helicopter pilot. But then Tesla announced [its Model S] I think in 2012 and then there was a big spike in graphite at this point. And everybody was calling us to fly surveys for graphite over all the deposits. Where I live is west of Quebec, where the Imerys mine is located, that’s 10 minutes airtime from my home. ",{"type":577,"attrs":760,"content":761},{"textAlign":49},[762,764,769],{"text":763,"type":582},"So that’s why I started Nouveau Monde, ",{"text":765,"type":582,"marks":766},"new world",[767],{"type":768},"italic",{"text":770,"type":582},". Let’s go explore where nobody else explored before and not over all the showings and old occurrences of graphite that everybody knew – it was too small. That’s how we discovered it after a few years of surveys and going on the ground … In 2014 we did the surveys over the Matawinie project, and then the first few trenches, drill holes, and then we raised the first 3 million dollars in 2015 to build a resource on the deposit. But it was like the 20th anomaly that we were following up on the ground. The geologist Tony is still with us and we tell this story all the time at Christmas parties to the new guys. ",{"type":577,"attrs":772,"content":773},{"textAlign":49},[],"Montreal-based Nouveau Monde Graphite could become one of the largest integrated producers of natural graphite and anode products in North America. The company aims to produce 42,000 tonnes a year of anode materials at a facility in Bécancour, using graphite from its nearby Matawinie mine. Battery producer Panasonic Energy has been testing the company’s anode […]",[776],{"slug":565,"name":566,"content":777},{"job_title":568,"image":778,"bio":571,"linkedin":572},{"filename":570},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"ca2ff3d7-29e8-411e-b4ec-1982f4c4f19a\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[782,784],{"slug":783,"name":263},"anode",{"slug":785,"name":786},"graphite","Graphite","private",{"id":49,"alt":679,"name":679,"focus":679,"title":679,"source":679,"filename":789,"copyright":679,"fieldtype":790,"meta_data":791,"is_external_url":51},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/478a2faeb2/bm-nouveau-monde-ceo.jpg","asset",{"alt":679,"title":679,"source":679,"copyright":679},"Jan 10, 2024","10th January 2024",[],[],1792773906412]