At last, Syrah is coming out swinging!  There is more in this...

At last, Syrah is coming out swinging!  There is more in this presentation than just a humdrum summary of the status at Balama.

First, Shaun Verner is making the point that Balama is no longer a mere shadow, looming in the background.  The elephant is in the room, and it is trumpeting!

The mine is up-and-running.

Production this year, despite ramp-up from a standing start, equipment failures, and a fire in the plant, is already greater than the annual production of any other graphite mine in the world. 

Product quality is high.   

And they are on track to produce more than 100K tonnes by year-end.

 

But perhaps the most significant point made in this presentation, quietly buried on Page 7, is the news of where the product is going.  We have had a string of categorical statements from those who claim to be experts, consistently claiming that significant sales to battery producers will not happen until many more years of product qualification have passed, and that previous shipments of qualification product count for nothing.

What is the truth? 

To date, about 70,000 tonnes of graphite have been produced.  The chart on Page 7 shows that almost half of this has actually gone to battery customers.  That is not "qualification sample" size.  Those are real purchases, by real customers, for real applications.  And we all know that the battery area is the one with a big future, and one where price premiums for quality product become very important.

Shaun Verner makes it very plain that Balama will be producing one-third of the world's natural graphite within a short time, and the clear inference is that battery producers are the customers who will be taking it.  That's good news to shareholders (like me) who have been watching a severe drop in price.  Profits, and dividends, may not be that far away.

Cheers