International Graphite (ASX:IG6) has secured a AU$4.5 million government grant that will fund the construction of its Collie micronising facility, the company said in a press release on Tuesday (November 12).
The amount will be funded under the Australian Government Critical Minerals Office grant.
“We are excited to be pushing ahead with the construction of the new plant at Collie. Establishing a micronising business in Collie has been an important step in our development plans,” said CEO and Managing Director Andrew Worland.
“It will establish the company as a producer in the graphite industry and build further our technical skills as we progress our Springdale mine to market battery anode material strategy," he added.
Collie will be the first purpose-built commercial graphite micronising plant in Australia.
It will mainly process concentrate from the company’s Springdale graphite project once it is in production.
Recent purification testwork at Springdale achieved a loss on ignition grade of 99.99 percent, which the company said exceeds the published industry benchmarks for anode materials, which is 99.97 percent.
Collie is envisioned to have a capacity of around 10,000 tonnes per year, and is expected to produce 95 percent total graphitic content (TGC) and 99 percent TGC micronised products from Springdale graphite concentrate.
Worland said the facility will “be amongst the most significant global producers of micronised graphite outside of China.”
Previously, the company operated the Collie graphite-processing and R&D facility, which included pilot-scale micronising and spheroidising equipment and a qualification-scale micronising plant.
The facility was opened in 2022 and is now exiting to pave way for the new one.
The implementation schedule and forecast economics for Stage 1 at Collie will be confirmed over the coming months, subject to the completion of a front-end engineering and design study.
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Securities Disclosure: I, Gabrielle de la Cruz, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
