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NEWS

MRC’s graphite

game-changer Munglinup graphite sample

ineral Commodities Ltd (MRC) is set ment of Munglinup. Graphite for batteries is that to the Munglinup graphite. Then we’re
Mto release the long-awaited DFS on its the fastest growing part of the market and going to take that technology up to Skaland
Munglinup graphite project this month, hav- ultimately it’s where we want to be, but the and potentially we will have the only non-HF
ing finalised the acquisition of an asset the challenge with bringing on and commission- purification plant in Europe.
company believes is the key to unlocking its ing a new graphite mine is you still need to “If we can get this technology into a com-
eventual development. place 75% of your run-of-mine product into mercial phase and drop it into Europe, we ex-
Last month the company officially took the traditional markets. pect the OEMs will just eat this up because
possession of the world’s highest-grade “That’s what we identified with Munglinup. currently they’re doing everything they can
flake graphite operation – the 102-year-old We need to be able to sell circa 50,000 tpa to reduce carbon signatures of their batter-
Skaland mine in northern Norway – for a to- of product, which presents a risk to the de- ies, which is something else we can offer the
tal cash consideration of less than $US9 mil- velopment strategy, because financiers will European markets.”
lion, payable from cash flow over five years. look at the existing market and say ‘can you Delineating a JORC-compliant resource
It was an acquisition six months in the guys sell all of your material into the market at Skaland for the market to ascribe value
making and one MRC hopes will open doors as it sits here today in October 2019?’.” to is the first item on the agenda for MRC
to both emerging and traditional graphite The MRC board is scheduled to meet now that the acquisition is complete. The
markets for future production from Mung- early this month to approve the results of the company will then look to implement some
linup, about 100km west of Esperance. Munglinup DFS, which the company had changes to the process flowsheet which will
Skaland – the largest flake graphite pro- been working towards publishing several allow it to increase the grade of its fines and
ducer in Europe and fourth biggest globally months ago before the opportunity to ac- lift production to 16,000 tpa.
outside China – currently spits out 10,000 quire Skaland emerged. Fox expects the processing changes will
tpa graphite concentrate but is permitted for Part of MRC’s strategy for Munglinup is to attract better basket prices than what the
expansion to 16,000 tpa. have a downstream option attached to the previous owners of Skaland were receiving.
Ore grades of 25-33% carbon are typical- overall development plan. Included in this “The existing marketing agreement didn’t
ly delivered to the Skaland plant operating at is a large demonstration plant for purifying provide any transparency of price transfer
only 60% of its capacity. graphite concentrate to battery-grade speci- and meant the company was just selling all
MRC corporate development manager fications (99.95% TGC). of its product at a set rate to a trader who
Peter Fox said the addition of Skaland had In August, MRC and its collaboration would take possession of that material and
more strategic value than economic benefit partners CSIRO and Doral Fused Materi- then they would individually distribute it to the
for a company looking to become more than als were awarded a funding grant of $2.61 various customers,” Fox said.
just a producer of graphite concentrate. million to establish the first Australian-based “Because there was no transfer of pricing,
“Although economically it’s still going to graphite purification process. the company had no idea what they were
be a nice little asset, strategically it’s really “We won’t develop just a concentrate-only getting for it. There were premium products
going to accelerate our graphite strategy im- mine, we’ll develop a downstream story that inside their basket of flake products that are
mensely,” Fox told Paydirt. goes with it,” Fox said. worth $US2,000/t, but they were getting
“Skaland came about as a result of the “We are taking proven technology that is fairly modest basket prices. So, by negotiat-
company’s time understanding the graphite already adopted and used in the titanium in- ing and taking control of our own marketing,
market and working towards the develop- dustry to purify titanium dioxide and applying we think there’s some easy wins in the con-
tracted price for those products.”
Fox also said the company would not
waste any time starting to have its down-
stream products qualified by end-users in
Europe, particularly in the EV space.
“We’re promoting ourselves as a company
that is readying itself for the demand that we
know is going to come from this aggressive
adoption of EVs through Europe,” he said.
“We’re getting our downstream strategy
ready to go so we can press the button at the
exact moment this demand starts to spike
for battery metals. That’s not far away, we’re
talking 2021/2022, so in the next couple of
years we’re really going to see this adoption
start to kick.”
– Michael Washbourne

Mineral Commodities has acquired the Skaland graphite operation in Norway

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