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eURoPe focUs

MRC on the anode charge

ineral Commodities Ltd (MRC) will ules of our anode facility.
Mdraw upon almost two years of suc- “Concurrently, we intend to continue with
cessful graphite operations in Norway as ongoing expansion and optimisation pro-
it prepares to launch a European-focused grammes at the mine, which will mean con-
battery anode production business. centrate is available for the anode modules
While the finer details of its downstream as the anode production comes online.
strategy are still to be signed off by key “We are getting closer to a pivotal point light of the EU’s Sustainable Battery policy
stakeholders, MRC appears to be on the where we will have a process that custom- framework released in December last year.
cusp of playing a much greater role in ers can come and see, as well as produce “We’ve been talking with end-users and
Europe’s burgeoning battery revolution, the samples they need so we can begin to a lot of sovereign groups who are part of
having established its reputation as a rec- work them to produce a very saleable and the accelerating transition towards car-
ognised graphite supplier following the stra- effective anode material.” bon neutrality and that’s provided us with
tegic acquisition of the century-old Skaland Based on announced capacities by man- a very good understanding of how we see
mine in late 2019. ufacturers of batteries for the EV market in the market emerging in Europe, particularly
At the time of the purchase, the Perth- Europe, capacity is expected to be at 370 the requirement for raw materials and ac-
based company was starting to flirt with GWh by 2025 and at 700 GWh by 2030. tive materials needed in that battery supply
opportunities to realise maximum share- EIT InnoEnergy is predicting demand in the chain,” Fox said.
holder value by heading downstream and EU will be at 400 GWh by 2025 and at 900 “What we are continually finding is there
tapping into what looms as a major shortfall GWh by 2030. is huge emerging demand for the raw and
in active anode material supply throughout Under this scenario, forecasted an- active materials required for the ever-ad-
Europe. ode demand in Europe could be as high vancing demand from energy storage and
Now with almost two years of graphite 320,000 tpa by 2025 and 720,000 tpa by electrification of transportation.”
production experience under its belt, MRC 2030. This equates to roughly the same MRC reported more tonnes of graphite
is poised to make that vision a reality, with demand for natural flake graphite under a were mined and processed from Skaland in
the demonstration phase of a dedicated 50/50 natural/synthetic blending scenario the June quarter despite sales being down
downstream programme to start after the on the basis of a 50% yield to product from from the March quarter. This was attributed
latest round of development work on alter- natural flake. to a lower inventory being available from
native caustic-based purification process- Last year MRC published a positive PFS the start of the period, with sales expected
es, in conjunction with the CSIRO. for an initial 10,000 tpa capacity active an- to improve through the September quarter.
MRC corporate development manager ode material plant in Norway. Under the Fox said the company continued to make
Peter Fox said the obvious next step was proposed vertically integrated strategy, improvements to the Skaland operation
to take the CSIRO-developed purification production can be increased to 25,400 tpa which had so far not been materially im-
technology to Norway and start the qualifi- once the company’s undeveloped Mung- pacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
cation process with end-users in key Euro- linup graphite project in Western Australia “We’ve got a four-stage cleaner circuit
pean markets. comes online. we’re looking to install in the back end of
“The business will need to grow and it will Using either of the caustic roast or car- this year and we hope to have that com-
likely grow from Norway,” Fox told Paydirt. bochlorination processes, neither of which missioned by the first quarter of next year,”
“The big next step for the business is to contain hydrofluoric acid, the proposed ac- Fox said. “We’re expecting to see a much-
build a demonstration plant in Norway that tive anode facility is forecast to generate a improved concentrate grade, which should,
will showcase our purification technology NPV of at least $1.3 billion and an IRR as in turn, improve the economics of our pro-
and the ability to scale. At the same time, high as 67%. duction.
we can then bring in end-users and collab- Fox said environmentally-friendly pro- “The challenges of operating a traditional
orators to qualify and gain confidence in the duction of anode materials is an important flake graphite mine are now clearly on our
process, and from that point, we secure the aspect of ongoing conversations with po- radar and we’re confident we can run a suc-
offtake to build the first and second mod- tential European customers, especially in cessful traditional operation whilst at the
same time transitioning to our ambition of
anode production. And that is very clearly
the key opportunity for us in that we don’t
need to go through this learning curve.
“We now have that operational founda-
tion that everyone desires. There is no
requirement for us to get our production
priced and into the market because we can
simply leverage off our existing production
and accelerate our transition towards an-
ode production.”
– Michael Washbourne

Norway is shaping as the future home of battery anode production for ASX-listed Mineral
Commodities

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