Gratomic Inc. would need C$4,7m (about N$63m) capital expenditure on the Aukam Graphite facility to push output to 12,000 tonnes by November 2024.
The multinational company with projects in Namibia, Brazil, and Canada commissioned the Aukam project at the end of June 2023.
The Aukam project is in southern Namibia, close to the port city of Luderitz in the Karas Region.
The property, covering 137,473 hectares under EPLs 3895, EPL 6710, EPL 7512, and EPL 7513, is on farm Aukam 104 and Harichab 121.
Since the commissioning of the project, Gratomic has processed 80 tonnes of material through the processing plant at a grade of 94% Cg concentrate, which is being stored on-site in the storage silos.
The capital needed will push the output of the Aukam project from the current kick-off level of 7,600 tonnes.
Gratomic says it has stockpiled enough mined material to feed operations for a year.
Once the final pieces of equipment are in place, the company will start producing graphite steadily, expanding until a 22,500-tonne capacity is achieved in 2025.
The plant is expected to start production in the first quarter of 2024, with the initial product sold to a European Carbon trader until the product is successfully included in the anode market.
Gratomic signed a letter of intent with Graphex Technologies on 25 January 2023 to supply graphite and develop a downstream processing facility in the US.
The company signed another agreement with Forge Nano in 2021 to build a pilot facility to internally process up to 1,000 tonnes of SG16 battery-grade anode materials.
In June 2023, Gratomic announced a commercial partnership and sales agreement with TM2 Verticals to supply purified flake graphite from the Aukam project to the alkaline battery sector.
Gratomic also partnered with Suntech Labs of South Africa to upgrade the Aukam graphite concentrate to the 96% grade the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) require.
A pilot project produced about 700 kilograms of minimum 96% grade concentrate samples for the global alkaline battery producers.
Arno Brand, President and CEO of Gratomic said the past few months have been challenging and time-consuming.
“It is with great relief that we now see ourselves in the final steps in production preparation at the Aukam Graphite mine in Namibia.”
