(MENAFN- Investor Ideas) Graphite One (TSXV: GPH, OTCQX: GPHOF) plans to invest $435 million to build a graphite anode production facility in Trumbull County, Ohio, between Cleveland and Pittsburgh (the “Site”).
Through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Graphite One Alaska, the Vancouver-based company chose Tension Valley in Ohio as its site and entered into a 50-year land lease on 85 acres. The agreement also includes an option to acquire the assets formerly known as Warren Depot, which is a component of the National Defense Stockpile Infrastructure, to the commercial site treated under Ohio’s EPA Voluntary Action Program a decade ago, certifying that the land no longer wishes to be mined clean.
Graphite One plans to begin site structure over the next 3 years, as part of the company’s strategy to become the first vertically incorporated manufacturer to serve the U. S. EV battery market. UU. Su supply chain strategy includes mining, manufacturing, and recycling, all made domestically.
The Ohio facility represents the second link in Graphite One’s complex graphite fabric origin chain; The first link is Graphite One’s Graphite Creek mine in Alaska, which is currently running its feasibility study in the fourth quarter of 2024, on an accelerated schedule, with a $37. 5 million grant under the Department of Defense’s Defense Production Act awarded in July. 2023.
Subject to financing, the factory will manufacture artificial graphite until a source of natural graphite can be sourced from the company’s Graphite Creek mine, located near Nome, Alaska, according to the March 20 press release.
Until the government relinquished Ohio ownership, the 160-acre site used to store 26 types of materials, adding chromium, lead, tin, copper, zinc, nickel, rubber, mercury and graphite ore.
“It’s wonderful to come full circle, this site also known as the former Warren Depot included graphite in National Defense reserves more than 30 years ago, the last time the U. S. mined graphite,” said Anthony Huston, president and CEO of Graphite One. Ohio is, at the moment, the best link in our strategy to build a complex 100 percent graphite origin chain based in the U. S. From mining to refining to recycling. The U. S. U. S. companies simply can’t keep pace with a 21st-century technology-driven economy. without critical minerals like graphite. “
The company says it will produce 25,000 tonnes per year of battery-ready anode and plans to increase production to 100,000 tpa.
Electric Vehicle Center
According to Graphite One, the “Voltage Valley” is at the center of the automotive industry, with abundant production of cheap electrical power from renewable energy sources. It is available by road and rail, with barge services nearby.
The state of Ohio is actively an electric vehicle-related industry to diversify its economy. “With production being one of Ohio’s main economic engines, I’m proud to see this complex new graphite font chain founded in the U. S. “We are not going to be in the U. S. in Niles,” the Republican said. Congressman Dave Joyce. “This new allocation will create more than 160 jobs and further stimulate economic expansion in the region. I look forward to seeing the good fortune of this assignment here in the OH-14 [District]. “
Among the projects announced in Ohio, South Korea’s LG Energy Solution has partnered with General Motors on Ultium Cells LLC, which is building a $2. 3 billion vehicle production facility in Lordstown, Ohio; Honda and LG Energy Solution to Build New EV Battery Plant in Fayette County; and Honda also announced $700 million to remodel 3 of its existing plants in Union, Logan and Shelby counties for vehicle production.
National Defense Develops List of Critical Minerals
In the years leading up to World War II, the United States created the National Defense Reserve (NDS) to obtain and store critical strategic materiel for national defense purposes. The Defense Logistics Agency for Strategic Materials (DLA Strategic Materials) oversees the operations of the NDS and its number one project is to “protect the country from harmful and costly reliance on foreign resources as a source of critical tissues in times of national emergency. “
How Governments Can Accelerate Critical Mineral Extraction and the Barriers to Doing So
Despite this, in 1992, Congress ordered that the maximum of the strategic and critical fabrics that the United States had accumulated in national defense arsenals be sold.
The number one goal of the National Defense reserves is to decrease the threat of dependence on foreign or sole suppliers of strategic and critical fabrics used in critical military, civilian, and critical commercial applications.
While much of the rest of the world struggled to capture strategic minerals, the U. S. intentionally ground to a halt.
Things began to change during the administration of former President Trump, and it had to be that way: at that time, the United States was 100 percent dependent on imports of thirteen critical minerals, including graphite.
In 2017, Trump signed an order to inspire the exploration and progress of new U. S. resources of those metals.
In December 2017, the U. S. Geological Surveypublished its 1802 industrial document titled “U. S. Critical Mineral Resources. “”The U. S. Economy: Environmental Geology and Future Supply Prospects. “
The report represents the U. S. government’s most comprehensive assessment of the profile and potential of the country’s mineral resources, and serves to inform federal mining policy. The report lists 23 metals and minerals critical to “the national economy and national security of the United States. “
In 2018, the U. S. government’s list of critical minerals was published. U. S. In 2020, the Critical Minerals List was codified into federal law, with a mandate to be updated every 3 years. As of 2024, the list of critical minerals now includes 50 elements.
“The United States needs resilient, diverse, and secure supply chains to ensure our economic prosperity and national security. Pandemics and other biological threats, cyberattacks, climate crises and extreme weather events, terrorist attacks, geopolitical and economic competition, and other conditions. It can decrease critical production capacity and the availability and integrity of critical goods, products, and services.
The EO identifies 3 generation sectors as critical chains:
The EO also identifies “critical minerals and other. . . strategic materials” as a fourth chain, critical to technological production and the defense trade base.
Improving U. S. Dependence on Graphite Imports
One of the world’s most important battery metals is graphite, a key element in electric vehicle batteries and electrical storage systems for which there is no substitute.
Analysts estimate that by 2030, at least five million tons of graphite will be needed annually to meet battery demand. That’s about 4 times the 1. 3 million tons mined globally, according to the USGS 2023 Mineral Commodity Summaries.
That’s why the U. S. Department of EnergyThe U. S. Food and Drug Administration has ranked graphite among the most sensitive on its list of minerals critical to America’s energy future. In 2022, President Biden issued a presidential order under the Defense Production Act (DPA) of 1950, noting graphite and 4 other key battery minerals that are at risk of source disruptions are “critical to national defense. “This DPA authority awarded Graphite One a $37. 5 million grant to boost its feasibility study.
Graphite One may account for a significant portion of the amount of graphite demanded lately in the United States.
Consider: in 2023, the United States imported 83,000 tons of vegetable graphite, 89% of which in flake form and high purity, suitable for electric vehicles.
According to the pre-feasibility study, the Graphite Creek mine is expected to produce an average of 51,813 tonnes of graphite per year over its expected 23-year mine life.
If all goes according to plan, the feasibility study, ahead of schedule by a year, would allow Graphite One’s Graphite Creek deposit to move even closer to becoming the only U. S. source of mined graphite, helping to reduce its reliance on imports. In fact, the SF expects to triple production, from 50,000 tonnes of graphite concentrate consistent with the PFS estimate to more than 150,000 tonnes).
Creek Graphite Mine
The only way to reduce dependence on imports is for the U. S. to locate its own source of graphite production, and at AOTH, a task like Graphite One’s Graphite Creek deposit ticks all the boxes.
According to the U. S. Geological Survey, Graphite Creek is the largest known flake graphite resource in the United States and the largest in the world.
On March 13, 2023, Graphite One updated its resource estimate, which showed a 15. 5% increase in measured and indicated tonnage with a corresponding 13. 1% increase in contained graphite tons. Measured and reported resources now amount to 37. 6 million tonnes at 5. 14% graphite, with an inferred resource of 243. 7 million tonnes at 5. 07% graphite.
According to the PFS, the mine is expected to produce an average of 51,813 tonnes of graphite per year over its planned 23-year mine life. The company itself is expected to produce approximately 75,000 tonnes of material per year, adding 49,600 tonnes of anode. materials, 7,400 tonnes of purified graphite products and 18,000 tonnes of unpurified graphite products.
In October, Graphite One announced the finishing touch of the 2023 drill program, as well as a variety of assay results. Thanks to the Department of Defense’s budget injection, the G1 program quadrupled the scope of the 2022 program, with five 7 wells completed for a total of 8,736 meters, the largest drilling program in Graphite One’s history. Of the five7 holes, five were geotechnical and the remaining five2 resource holes intersected visual graphite mineralization and continued to demonstrate the exceptional consistency of a shallow, high-grade graphite deposit that remains open to the east and west of the existing mineral resource estimate.
More broadly, Graphite One’s activities can be seen as complementing what is already happening in Northwest Alaska with respect to the structure of the first deep-water port in the Arctic region of the United States.
The progression of the largest graphite deposit in the United States coincides with the main port at a critical time in the Bering Strait
The U. S. Army Corps of Engineersand the Alaska Department of Transportation have decided to choose two sites for a deep-water port facility: Nome and Port Clarence. Nome has won $600 million in government subsidies and appears to be on track to double the length of its existing port to accommodate the world’s largest advertising and military vessels. Work is expected to begin this year.
Port Clarence is only 25 miles from Graphite One’s Graphite Creek deposit, meaning G1 may be just one key visitor to a port on BSNC’s lands at Point Spenser. At AOTH, we don’t know which deep-water port will be built: Port Clarence and Nome are within walking distance of Graphite Creek and can be easily connected by road.
While Graphite Creek’s advancement is in the feasibility study phase, the task got a boost from the federal government, which in 2021 granted the task High Priority Infrastructure Project (HPIP) status. This ensures that other federal permitting agencies coordinate their assignment reviews to streamline the approval process. In other words, having HPIP means that Graphite Creek will most likely be accelerated to production.
The allocation is not located near a salmon fishery and involves local communities such as Nome, which has a long history of resource extraction.
The company has the backing of Alaska’s political office: Alaska’s governor, senators, and unmarried congressman. They obviously see an investment to develop national graphite capacity as money well spent.
The Bering Straits Native Corporation has pledged to contribute to the project, adding an initial investment of $2 million, with the option to increase its investment to $10. 4 million.
For national security reasons, the U. S. will have to build port infrastructure and begin expanding this region if it wants to maintain its sovereignty in the Arctic. We believe that the assignment of Graphite Creek to Graphite One fits perfectly with those strategic plans.
We also see Graphite One playing a leading role in loosening China’s grip on the U. S. graphite market. It has been shipped to the U. S. by extracting the feedstock from its Graphite Creek allocation in Alaska and shipping it, Nome or Port Clarence, to its planned graphite anode production facility in Voltage Valley, Ohio.
Graphite One Inc. TSXV: GPH, OTCQX: GPHOF 2024. 03. 21 Share Price: CA$0. 93 Shares Outstanding: 129 Market Cap: C$123 MGPH Website
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