PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Graphite developer Volt Resources has signed a binding offtake agreement with US-based Nano Graphene for a minimum of 5 000 t of flake graphite over a five-year period.
The offtake period would start in the first quarter of 2018.
“Securing a binding offtake agreement from a US-based graphene group at this point in Volt’s history is a remarkable achievement,” said CEO Trevor Matthews.
“This continues the positive feedback from end-users, and [also confirms] independent testwork regarding the beneficial properties of Volt’s Namangale graphite concentrate.”
The offtake agreement comes as Volt starts definitive feasibility studies on its Namangale project, in Tanzania, where a prefeasibility study previously considered a number of production scenarios ranging from 60 000 t/y to 240 000 t/y of graphite concentrate over a mine life of 20 years.
Matthews said on Friday that the offtake agreement would allow Volt to move to producer status and start cash flow generation from small-scale mining and processing in 2018, much earlier than originally planned.
The company was planning to build on the binding sales agreement and was reviewing its production options, including third-party processing, with respect to small-scale production in 2018.