AN Australian company
set to contribute more than US$1.0 billion to the Tanzanian economy over
the next 20 years through local graphite mine projects, says the global
market opportunity for battery grade graphite is unequivocal.
Speaking on the second day of a three-day
Pay dirt 2018 Africa Down Under mining conference in Perth, Kibaran
Resources Chairman, Mr Robert Pett, said the market opportunity for the
commodity was “now” despite a lot of “noise” around the battery
component supply chain and forecast supply and demand estimates.
“A raft of high end, credible industry and
government agencies have initiated substantial modelling around
graphite and the opportunity it presents is quite clear,” Mr Pett said.
“Standout and verifiable conclusions range
from the expected presence of one billion electric vehicles on the
world’s roads by 2025 under a lithium-ion battery market momentum worth
US$290 billion by 2025,” he said.
“Some 47 per cent of the lithium-ion
battery market will require a component contribution from spherical
graphite and this will generate a 700 per cent increase in natural flake
spherical graphite demand in just the next seven years.
“This will stretch global consumption of
natural flake spherical graphite from 127,000 tonnes currently per annum
to 800,000tpa.” Cobalt, nickel, lithium and manganese would fulfil the
suite of ingredients needed for lithium-ion battery production.
Mr Pett also pointed to the accelerating
demand from the energy industry for domestic and industrial application
lithium-ion battery storage options.
“The expected energy expenditure is mind
boggling – a forecast US$8 trillion investment in new wind and solar
production globally through to 2050, and a US$500 billion investment
through that period in new battery storage capacity,” Mr Pett said.
“We believe projects like Kibaran’s
advanced high grade natural flake graphite undertaking at Epanko in
Tanzania are of the calibre offering the required scalability, long-term
supply profile and the duality of either concentrate supply or special
value-adding spherical graphite.”
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