Modern Mining November 2022

GRAPHITE

high-grade saprolitic deposits in well-delineated mining zones that have shallow mineralisation, which allows for free dig mining and thereby the ability to keep costs to the lowest quartile. Commercial production from Vatomina, which has a production capacity of 9 000 tpa of flake graph ite, commenced in December last year with the 18 000 tpa Sahamamy project, to be commissioned this year. As the company aims at becoming a producer of 84 000 tpa of graphite concentrate by 2024, it will continually ramp up production, adding 18 000 tpa of concentrate before the end of 2023, to bump up production to 48 000 tpa. Poddar explains that the orebody is blessed with the sought-after and highly priced large to jumbo sized flake concentration, making it an extremely attractive project. “Between 70% and 80% of flake size falls into the large to jumbo size category,” he says. By 2024, the company hopes to produce 84 000 tpa natural flake graphite with 30% in the jumbo category, 40% in the large category, 30% in the small category. Current graphite production will feed the world’s larger users of graphite. However, for the additional output scheduled to come onstream in the near future, the company is engaging with a different suite of graphite users, including those in the energy stor age space, and is already in the process of engaging automobile giants and battery manufacturers. Poddar says bringing its two graphite assets into production is a huge milestone and sets the ball roll ing for the company to become a global graphite player. “Rarely does one come across a mining com pany that can say it has become a producer within five years of identifying an asset. “And becoming an initial producer of 30 000 tpa of graphite concentrate brings us into an enviable position in terms of earning capacity and providing value for shareholders as we target further growth through additional exploration of our existing assets.” Localisation focus With the demand for electric vehicles set to soar, Tirupati Graphite is heeding the call for the localisa tion of manufacturing centres in developed countries and has in place an arrangement with an Indian company for progressing projects aligned with this strategy. “We are in the process of further arrangements with Tirupati Speciality Graphite Private Limited (TSG) that will allow us to fast-track our strategy on hi-tech speciality graphite products and the graphene and advanced materials arena.” “On the back of global geopolitical turmoil, we are seeing an increased call for local manufacturing. Our intention is to build a downstream entity, pos sibly in the UK or in Europe, from which we will, for

– Tamatave – which links to multiple shipping lines worldwide. To get its Sahamamy and Vatomina projects off the ground and into production, the African miner invested around £14-million in capital expenditure, which included the cost of exploration and internal infrastructure developments, such as investment into the development of a 50 km road infrastructure and the cost of the 30 000 tpa processing plant. Compared to the millions of dollars laid out by many of its peers in capital expenditure to get proj ects into production, Poddar says that the capex to develop the two Madagascan projects is relatively minute given the capacity perspective of 30 000 tpa production. “We have extensive experience, extending to three decades of working in the graphite space, which has been key in helping us keep our costs extremely low. In fact, we manufactured the heart of the processing equipment and machinery inhouse, and undertook the entire engineering and develop ment of our projects ourselves. And apart from being able to build our graphite projects at a fraction of the cost of other producers, we were able to do so at a much faster pace.” Although the Vatomina project is a greenfields project, the miner completely overhauled the dilapi dated small brownfields Sahamamy operation, equipping it with the latest technologies to ensure it delivers to peak performance. Tirupati Graphite’s Madagascan projects are

Aerial view of the Tirupati’s Madagascar operations.

Graphite market Many parts of the world, such as India, USA, Europe and Japan, are net import ers of flake graphite. The EU and USA have classified the material as a critical resource.

Tirupati Graphite’s team conducts exploration activities in Madagascar.

26  MODERN MINING  November 2022