NextSource signs lease agreement and places equipment pre-order for battery anode facility.

Canadian company, NextSource Materials has been busy over the last couple of weeks, with announcements about progress at its battery anode facility in the Freeport zone in the Port of St Louis in Mauritius. The graphite miner has signed a long-term lease agreement for the site, just days after submitting an Environmental Permitting (EIA) application to the government, following the inclusion of integrated engineering improvements into the plant design.

The company has also pre-ordered process equipment, which initially will have a production capacity of 3,600tpy of spheronized and purified graphite (SPG) and coated SPG (CSPG). The process equipment is currently being fabricated and assembled offshore and will be shipped to Mauritius once the EIA process is completed. Going forward the CSPG capacity will be increased in a phased manner after 2024 to reach 14,400tpy, according to the EIA filing.

In the meantime, NextSource will operate a small-scale pilot plant on the site using the graphite concentrate from its wholly-owned Molo Mine in Madagascar. This will supply samples for testing for key OEM customers. The Molo graphite is already in Phase 1 of production and currently ramping up to reach its nameplate capacity of 17ktpy of graphite concentrate after starting production in June 23.

These are definite steps towards NextSource’s ambition to become a vertically integrated global supplier of battery materials, although small scale at the moment, it will provide an alternative source of battery grade graphite to the world market, currently dominated by Chinese suppliers.