Pic: Getty/Stockhead
Mining
The long-suffering graphite miner hit close to 3-year highs last week after signing an offtake agreement with Elon Musk’s Tesla.
At the time, there was little detail on the deal to supply natural graphite Active Anode Material (AAM) from its US production facility to the EV maker. Today, SYR provided further clarity.
Tesla will buy 8,000t per annum of the proposed 10,000tpa of initial AAM production capacity at Vidalia, it says.
This is conditional on the parties agreeing the final specifications of AAM by no later than 31 December 2022 and achieving final qualification of AAM to Tesla’s satisfaction by no later than 31 May 2025.
The agreement may also be terminated if production has not started by 31 May 2024.
“The importance and materiality to Syrah of the agreement with Tesla is that it provides a foundation to proceed with the initial expansion of Vidalia’s production capacity, as stated in the announcement of 23 December 2021,” SYR says.
“The terms of the agreement including volume, pricing and term will assist Syrah in finalising its investment decision in relation to Vidalia.”
SYR plans to make a final investment decision for construction of this expanded facility in January 2022, subject to financing.
The company is also advancing commercial and technical engagement with other target customers.
In November, CHN hit an all-time high after announcing a truly spectacular maiden resource of 10Moz Pd-Pt-Au, 530,000t nickel, 330,000t copper and 53,000t cobalt at Gonneville — the equivalent of 1.9Mt of nickel or 17Moz of palladium.
CHN’s Alex Dorsch says there are more major discoveries to be found in the Julimar project area.
New targets in the crosshairs include ‘Hartog’ and ‘Baudin’ which Dorsch calls “the clear standout drill targets on the planet today”.
Hartog and Baudin are in State Forest, the only reason they haven’t been drilled yet. The painfully slow wheel of government has finally turned to give CHN the green light for an initial low impact drilling program.
Strict environmental requirements include “no mechanised clearing of vegetation and a maximum operational footprint of 4.4ha across the ~2,000ha Hartog-Baudin target area”.
The ~6.5km long Hartog anomaly alone includes ~30 ground EM conductors and multikilometre scale Ni-Cu soil anomalies, “comparable to Gonneville pre-discovery”, CHN says.
Importantly, CHN has a fantastic hit rate on conductors so far, with 11 out of 12 of those drilled at Gonneville turning up mineralised.
This under-the-radar ~700,000ozpa gold miner — the result of last year’s merger between ASX-listed Alacer and North American listed SSR — recently dazzled punters with a standout September quarter result.
It reported Q3 production of 186,941oz of gold equivalent at all in sustaining costs (AISC) of US$1,006/oz from its four producing assets in the USA, Turkey, Canada, and Argentina.
That’s a hefty profit margin at current gold prices above $US1,800/oz.
Today SSR announced that that commissioning and ramp-up of the sulphide plant flotation circuit at the Çöpler operation in Turkey had begun.
The super low-cost operation produced 83,000oz at $US714/oz AISC in Q3.
This plant upgrade is expected to boost processed gold grades, reduce reagent (chemical) use, and increase total sulphide plant throughput and gold production. All good things.
Mining
Mining
Mining
Get the latest Stockhead news delivered free to your inbox.
