JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Battery Minerals has signed a binding offtake agreement with Qingdao Black Dragon Graphite for 10 000 t/y of graphite concentrate from its Montepuez project, in Mozambique, for an initial term of three years.
This marks the third offtake agreement for the project.
Black Dragon is a privately-owned company based in Shandong, China, with extensive expertise in mining, production, downstream processing and marketing of graphite.
“Montepuez is rapidly gaining momentum, as demonstrated by the fact that we now have three binding agreements covering 60% of our forecast yearly production.
“At the same time, we are in discussions to finalise the mining licence and we are rapidly advancing the project as part of our strategy to be in production by December and complete our first shipment in the March quarter of 2019,” said Battery Minerals executive chairperson David Flanagan.
As Battery Minerals executes subsequent expansions, it expects production to grow to over 100 000 t/y of graphite flake concentrate from Montepuez by 2022.