Australia's Evion sells initial graphite output from Indian JV to Germany

Australia's Evion Group expects to ship 386 mt of expandable graphite from its Indian joint venture to Germany's Technografit GmbH by mid-March 2025, the company said Nov. 6., marking the JV's first sales.

The 386 mt is part of the initial production from Panthera Graphite Technologies, which operates the expandable graphite plant near Pune, India, representing projected output over Nov. 3, 2024 to about mid-January 2025.

"Strong demand for our expandable graphite should result in the JV selling more than 2,000 mt over the first full year of operations," Evion said, noting Panthera can produce a further 500 mt of material.

Evion expects further sales contracts to be signed in the short term for ongoing supplies for the remainder of 2025.

The JV plant is projected to produce 2,000-2,500 mt/year of expandable graphite, and plans to increase the output to about 4,000-5,000 mt/year.

Evion and Metachem Manufacturing Co each own a 50% stake in Panthera.

"After two years of careful planning, construction and testing, we are delighted to have reached the stage of producing and selling our world-class expandable graphite to the European market," David Round, Evion's managing director, said.

Panthera is expected to "produce globally significant quantities of expandable graphite to meet the world's burgeoning demand of this material from sources outside of China," he said.

Evion had said that the graphite market is dominated by China, which supplies 75% of the world's flake graphite and 96% of its spherical graphite. But, by 2034, China's share of flake graphite production is expected to decline to 61% largely due to restrictions introduced late 2023.

Other graphite manufacturers, such as Syrah Resources, are raising their graphite production capacities to meet growing demand for electric vehicles. Graphite is the most common anode material used in lithium-ion batteries for EVs.

Amid Evion's sales deal, prices in the Chinese natural flake graphite and spherical graphite spot market had also inched up amid higher offers in the week to Nov. 6.

A 100 mt of 94% carbon content natural flake graphite trade was reported concluded on Nov. 1 at Yuan 2,600/mt, equivalent to approximately $366/mt.

"However, you'll usually add premium to it and you need permit to export," said a trader.

Offer levels for natural flake graphite were heard high at Yuan 2,500-2,600/mt for 94% carbon content material and Yuan 2,700-2,800/mt for natural flake graphite with 95% carbon content. Yuan 2,700/mt is roughly equivalent to $379/mt.

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed spot prices of natural flake graphite at $405/mt CIF Northeast Asia on Nov. 5, up $10/mt from the session before, and spherical graphite at $1,755/mt CIF Northeast Asia, also up $10/mt from the session before.