Australia-listed Syrah Resources has reported a slight delay in the production of active anode material (AAM) at its 11 250 t/y Vidalia facility, in Louisiana, but expects the plant to start production before month-end.
The company, which owns the Balama graphite mine in Mozambique, reports that commissioning processes at Vidalia are well advanced or complete across all parts of the facility.
The operations team is also fully staffed with more than 100 people engaged in the commissioning process and ready to ramp up production at Vidalia.
Syrah has produced unpurified spherical graphite from the front-end milling area since October to build inventory of precursor value-added material in preparation for the purification and furnace areas becoming operational.
However, commissioning of the purification area, including the introduction of reagents into the circuit, is delayed owing to optimisation activities associated with the press filtration system and unusual below freezing temperatures forecast at Vidalia next week.
Syrah says its team is working with vendors to safely complete wet commissioning of the purification area with the forecast improvement in weather at Vidalia after next week.
The heating cycle for the first furnace line started in early January.