TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Emerging graphite producer Focus Graphite on Tuesday said that the 2012 and 2013 exploration and definition drilling programmes had enabled it to announce a 92% increase in the compliant measured and indicated resource of its flagship Lac Knife project, in Quebec.

Situated 27 km south-west of Fermont, Ottawa-based Focus said that the high-grade graphite resource were now estimated at 9.6-million tonnes grading 14.77% graphitic carbon (Cg), at a 3% Cg cutoff grade. The resource update also estimated about 3.1-million tonnes of inferred resources at 13.25% Cg at the same cutoff.

A significant contributing factor to the higher resources was that the company had reduced the cutoff grade from 5% Cg in the 2012 preliminary economic assessment study down to 3% Cg in this update, citing a higher selling price and higher concentrate grade as the main drivers for the decision.

This translated to an increase of 81% of in-situ graphite from 778 000 t to 1.4-million tonnes in the Canadian National Instrument 43-101-compliant measured and indicated categories.

The positive news lifted the junior’s TSX-V-listed shares 6% on Tuesday to C$0.53 apiece, in a market where junior resources firms are under extreme pressure to perform.

The resource update upgraded 432 000 t of indicated resources to the measured category grading an average of 23.66% Cg at the 3% cutoff grade, and the bulk of the three-million tonnes previously classified as inferred resources was successfully upgraded to the measured and indicated categories.

Focus had also managed to delineate an additional 3.1-million tonnes of inferred resources located within the south-west extension of the Lac Knife deposit.

"This announcement comes on the heels of our historic announcement of the signing of a ten-year offtake agreement with a Chinese industrial conglomerate, just as China announced it was shutting down about 20% of its flake graphite production in Shandong province. This further illustrates the need for reliable, low-cost, high-quality graphite flake production outside of China," president and COO Don Baxter said.

One of China’s primary flake graphite-producing regions had been ordered to halt production on environmental grounds, which would take about 10% of the world’s flake graphite supply off the market, the equivalent of 60 000 t/y, UK-based market research firm Industrial Minerals Data said last month.

Given that China produces almost 75% of the world’s graphite and that ‘flake' is the most sought-after form of natural graphite for value-added, high-technology carbon products, this was a significant development for the international graphite market.