@cartex may not be aware that Syrah already has a licensing...

@cartex may not be aware that Syrah already has a licensing agreement which allows them to use a well-recognised coating method for their spherical graphite.  The agreement, with Morgan Hairong (second-largest coated spherical graphite producer in China), which was announced in Nov 2015, gave Syrah the right to use the technology anywhere outside China.   So the notion that Syrah will be

"at the mercy of a third party processor"

just does not hold water.  

The claim that nothing can happen for another three years, due to the need to further qualify product, is also highly questionable.  In June of 2016, the Japanese company Marubeni agreed to buy 50K tonnes per year of coated and uncoated spherical graphite, and stated that "test work had already been undertaken" - and that was more than two years ago!

Nobody is suggesting that there is nothing more to be done, but the idea that the company is going from a standing start in the coated spherical graphite market is just preposterous.

Cheers