Looking for the Winners in the Burgeoning Graphite Market
Northern Graphite is starting to draw a lot of attention, now that the graphite market – as we all know by now – is on a roll.
Northern Graphite (NGC: TSX) recently announced positive results from pilot plant testing on its Bissett Creek graphite project in Ontario, located between Ottawa and North Bay on the Trans-Canada Highway.
The company has been operating a pilot plant to confirm and optimize the process plant design to produce large flake, high purity gr`aphite. NGC announced results that showed 50% of the graphite concentrate produced will be jumbo size +48 mesh flake with a carbon content averaging 97.7% graphitic carbon (Cg), according to House Mountain Partners CEO Chris Berry.
(The firm runs what it calls DiS – or Discovery Investing Scoreboard - and Northern Graphite scores high so its one of the top picks.)
“These results imply that graphite of this high carbon content and flake size will command a premium price on world markets. The graphite NGC plans to produce will be ideal for use in lithium-ion batteries and other applications requiring a highly pure form of graphite. An electrified future is building. It will require more stable supplies of both lithium and graphite (amongst other metals); this is good news for companies like NGC,” Berry writes in a recent morning note. “The next step for the company is …set its sights on the eventual production of large flake, high purity graphite by the end of 2012.”
Berry sees the obvious potential for this kind of incubator company in much the same way the uranium sector took off in 2004 and the rare earth sector in 2006.
“We see the potential of a cyclical increase in the graphite companies as a group. Further, the materials science of derivatives of graphite, graphene for example, is just beginning to emerge for the R&D world. Focus Metals for example has spun off a private company called “Graphoid” to take advantage of the many applications that of that new material appear to offer,” Berry writes.
“One of the strengths of the graphite story is that it is not just dependent on one technology. Lithium Ion batteries, Electric Vehicles, fuel cells, VRBs, Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactors, are all going to be commercial to some degree and all will have an effect on the graphite market which is already tight.” Quelle: http://www.graphiteblog.com/2012/04/...urgeoning-graphite-market.html |