AMN - MADAGASCAR: Bass eyes expandable graphite market

Australian graphite producer Bass Metals aims to move into the supply of expandable graphite from its Madagascar operations as it sees a window of opportunity to snare market share for the very limited but increasingly in-demand commodity.

Addressing the Paydirt Africa Down Undermining conference in Perth, Bass Metals’ CEO Tim McManus said expandable graphite was emerging as the highest growth of any graphite product.

“Regulatory pressures are forcing higher adoption of expandable graphite in flame retardants particularly,” he said.

“This is expected to push demand for this product type to above two million tonnes per annum in China alone, by 2027.

“However, not all graphite types are suitable for expandability and this favours Bass’ forward mining and export of our amendable large flake graphite into this market as we continue to ramp up our mining and processing operations from our Madagascar mines.”

Expandable graphite is a compound of graphite that with the use of reagents and heated to around 1000°C, rapidly expands to hundreds of times its original size.

Such expandability is better suited to coarser flake graphites such as found in Madagascar compared to smaller flake graphite types. These expansion properties enable its applications in high heat, corrosion, compression and radiation resistance.

“Expandable graphite is a market segment with a very limited supply structure,” Tim McManus said.

“There are only a few suppliers in this supply chain and that favours further export and customer offtake opportunities from our Madagascar graphite exploration, development and mining operations.”

The new opportunity comes after a strong start to FY19 for Bass Metals.

It commenced the new financial year successfully recommissioning its Graphmada graphite mine and processing plant in Madagascar, at an annual rate of 6,000 tonnes of graphite concentrate.

Some 45% of that output is in the premium large flake concentrate category, with large flake recovery rates continuing to improve.

The company has its eyes firmly set on more than tripling that output by 2020 in addition to developing downstream expandable graphite production and technologies.

Its aspirations will be buoyed by the US$640 million upgrade of the Tamatave export port by the Madagascan and Japanese governments.

Graphmada has a large flake graphite resource of 382,000 tonnes of contained graphite with substantial upside in existing primary, secondary and new deposits.

It has recommissioned the mine at a low operating cost of around US$5 per tonne of ore delivered and expected all-in C1 production cost of less than US$500 per tonne.

www.bassmetals.com.au