BlackEarth Minerals Commences Maniry Graphite Fines Scoping Study

THE DRILL SERGEANT: BlackEarth Minerals (ASX: BEM) has started a Scoping Study on building a plant to process graphite from its Maniry project in Madagascar.

BlackEarth Minerals explained the study hopes to confirm the commercial viability of processing fines from its Maniry graphite project into Battery Anode Material (BAM).

The BAM Study will assess the viability of building a manufacturing plant which will produce the spheronised and purified graphite that will be required for lithium batteries, in Europe where demand for BAM is expected to greatly increase.

The company believes the BAM plant will potentially add value to Maniry fines, which up to now it has planned to sell as a raw product to processors.

Preliminary studies carried out by BlackEarth concluded the BAM could sell for approx. US$3500 per tonne compared with approx. US$850 per tonne for the concentrate fines.

“We believe there is an exceptional opportunity to become a vital supplier to the lithium battery industry by processing Maniry fines into BAM,” BlackEarth Managing Director Tom Revy said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“This would allow us to sell a portion of our fines for around four times the price we would realise by selling them as a raw product to others to process into BAM.

“By becoming vertically integrated in this manner, we stand to substantially increase our revenues, margins and free cashflow while becoming an integral part of the booming lithium battery industry in Europe.

“The BAM strategy is designed to provide valuable income diversity and increased overall financial returns from Maniry.

“At the same time, we will proceed as planned with our strategy to process our coarse graphite via our joint venture in India for sale of expandable graphite into Europe next year.”

 

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

 

Web: www.blackearthminerals.com.au