Maybe in 10 to 15 years at the earliest for EV's or battery storage to have a significant move upward in the global market....having been in graphite for more than a couple of decades, I have seen the ebb and flow of the graphite industry as well as ups and downs and to focus on comparing to iron ore (bulk industrial mineral where the end user processes the ore) is not valid as all natural graphite has to be processed into a usable form or product for qualification where as iron ore is sold as is.
Macro forces have more affect on the graphite industry that most, yet you neglect to mention the shutdown of dozens of operational graphite projects from 1990 to 1993 when the Chinese became the major supplier of natural graphite in the world.
Your price increase timeline is not accurate as it occurred from 2009-2012 when China a few years earlier was forced to close a multitude of mining operations (including natural graphite) to comply with the environmental and air quality requirements for the 2008 Olympics and in doing so created an artificial supply perception that increased prices by up to 4 times the levels from 2004-2008.
Current total graphite powder usage for all secondary battery applications is ~ 120,000 MT per year; a far cry from the project 500,000 MT as projected in 2015. EV's base their success on government intervention providing subsidies to both producer and purchaser. Without those subsidies, EV's could not stand alone facing the same market forces that traditional car mfg. has experienced over many decades.
Extreme profits for SYR selling precursor feedstock and to refractories at sub US$ 600 MT?? Your definition of extreme profits does not meet the definition. SYR profits MAYBE = US$ 125 to US$ 150 MT?? They are a long way from any extreme profits as they have to discount prices to move the thousands of tonnes in storage just to recover current cash costs.
NO company is immune from poor management and financial planning and to make the assertion SYR will weather the cash burn / profit storm is not realistic as ANY company can fall prey to market forces that can affect any company negatively.
The next 12 to 18 months will be the tell tale for this project.
SYR Price at posting:
$1.61 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
(20min delay)
