Canadian exploration company E-Power Resources (CSE:EPR) is assessing development options for its Tetepisca Flake Graphite Project including funding from a strategic partner and a potential sale.
CEO James Cross tells Mining.com.au the preferred pathway to development includes de-risking and monetising the Québec-based asset “while it still sits in the ground” by delivering to industry that essential link in the supply chain.
“It can be now, or after a few more milestones are met with funding from a strategic partner, who would acquire it after we achieve those milestones,” Cross tells this news service.
The likely end users and customers of Tetepisca’s graphite, if and when it goes into production, will likely be defence industry, basic manufacturing, or battery anode makers.
“We intend to exit before production ever begins. There are more users/customers than there is graphite, so industry has to get it while they can, or the Glencores of the world will get in there in front of them,” Cross says.
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence forecasts natural graphite demand will increase 140% by 2030, meaning some 30 new natural graphite mines and 12 new synthetic graphite plants will need to come online globally to fill the void.
In Cross’s view, Tetepisca will have to be one of those 30, especially as there are probably only about 20 significant candidates.
“If you look at the West, it is even less. The shareholders of E-Power Resources intend to be out of this long before 2030, and well before production begins,” the CEO explains to this news service.
“Industry needs that essential link in its supply chain and we are prepared to deliver it.
“If a company has a manufacturing base producing $25 billion in revenues per annum, what is $150 million for a graphite deposit to ensure you can keep that revenue stream going?”
Cross adds that not only is Tetepisca an important project, it is absolutely essential that it comes online if Western industry, including defence, is not going to grind to a halt.
Manufacturers will have to acquire these projects fast and permitting will have to be “wildly streamlined”, or they risk being dependent on their competition or “geopolitical adversaries” for essential critical materials, especially graphite.
The Tetepisca property is located 220km north of the town of Baie-Comeau in the North Shore Region of Québec. The property consists of 230 claims covering an area of some 12,620 hectares within the emerging Tetepisca Graphite District (TGD).
The property is 100% owned by E-Power. The TGD is an active graphite exploration and development district with delineated measured and indicated resources in excess of 120 million tonnes at an average grade of 14% Cg.
Tetepisca is strategically located over continuous bedrock conductive horizons that are known and interpreted to be due to graphite and which hold significant potential to host flake graphite resources.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: E-Power
