ASX Graphite Stocks: 5 Biggest Companies in 2024

Market cap: AU$403.35 million; share price: AU$0.705

Sovereign Metals is focused on advancing on its Kasiya rutile-graphite project in Malawi. Rutile is a mineral consisting of titanium dioxide that's often used to produce titanium metal. Kasiya's graphite co-product mineral resource estimate is 1.8 billion tonnes at 1.4 percent graphite, containing over 24.4 million tonnes of graphite. The company believes this material has the potential to be used to supply spherical purified graphite for the lithium-ion battery anode market.

Major miner Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO,NYSE:RIO,LSE:RIO) has made a series of strategic investments in Sovereign Metals over the past year totalling AU$58.9 million, giving it a 19.76 percent stake in the company as of July.

With this funding and Rio Tinto's technical expertise, Sovereign is advancing Kasiya toward a definitive feasibility study (DFS). In June, the company announced that pilot plant construction is underway as part of an ongoing optimisation study, which will provide critical information for the planned DFS.

Market cap: AU$331.17 million; share price: AU$0.31

Syrah Resources is an industrial minerals and technology company with a vision of becoming a leading global supplier of graphite and battery anode products. The company's two main focuses right now are its flagship Balama graphite project in Mozambique and its Vidalia anode materials facility in Louisiana, US.

Syrah’s Balama operation has a projected lifespan of over 50 years, and its combined mining and processing operations allow for the production of 94 to 98 percent pure carbon graphite concentrate.

Syrah reached a milestone in April with the sale of 10,000 tonnes of natural graphite fines from Balama to PT Indonesia BTR New Energy Materials. This was the company's "first large volume natural graphite sale to a battery supply chain participant destination outside China." It came after the announcement of a binding offtake agreement with South Korea's Posco Future M (KRX:003670) as part of Syrah's efforts to expand its reach into ex-China markets.

In February, Syrah started production at the Vidalia facility, making it the first integrated graphite processor outside of China. The plant has an annual production capacity of 11,250 tonnes of active anode material.

In 2022, the company was selected to receive an up to US$220 million grant from the US Department of Energy as part of the country's Inflation Reduction Act. The funds are being used to support the financing of an expansion at Syrah's Vidalia facility that will bring its capacity to 45,000 tonnes per year.

The company has binding offtake agreements with Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), Westwater Resources (NYSEAMERICAN:WWR) and Graphex Technologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of Graphex Group (NYSEAMERICAN:GRFX,HKEX:6128).

Market cap: AU$228.73 million; share price: AU$0.09

Renascor Resources has honed its efforts on helping to power the future with clean energy resources. While the company has five projects, most of its activities are focused on its two fully owned projects in South Australia: the Siviour battery anode materials project and the Carnding gold project.

Renascor announced in April that the Australian government had approved a AU$185 million loan facility to help advance its planned vertically integrated battery anode material graphite mine and manufacturing operation. In July, the company was awarded a AU$5 million grant under the Australian government’s International Partnerships in Critical Minerals Program to help fund a AU$10 million demonstration plant. Both of these initiatives will help fast track Siviour.

Renascor says it’s on track for planned commissioning of the demonstration processing plant in Q2 2025. The plant will produce battery-grade purified spherical graphite.

Market cap: AU$214.56 million; share price: AU$0.55

Talga Group is a vertically integrated battery anode and materials company, meaning it mines its own graphite and also produces anodes. It has operations in Sweden, Japan, Australia, Germany and the UK.

Last year, Talga received environmental approval for its Nunasvaara South graphite mine, which forms part of its vertically integrated Vittangi anode project in Sweden; it also got an environmental permit for its Luleå anode refinery, which Talga says will be Europe's first commercial natural graphite anode plant.

Construction of the plant began in the third quarter of 2023.

A FEED study for the Vittangi anode project was completed in the first quarter of 2024, and a scoping study is now underway to expand the existing initial 19,500 tonne per year production of graphite anode products. Talga is targeting Q4 of this year for the completion of the scoping study, which also includes downstream anode refinery expansions and incorporation of the company's proprietary graphite recycling technology.

Market cap: AU$163.87 million; share price: AU$0.52

Quantum Graphite is advancing the Uley 2 flake graphite project in South Australia, which includes the past-producing Uley mine and the Mikkira deposit. The company bills it as “one of the largest high-grade natural flake deposits in the world.”

The project is fully permitted and development ready with a binding offtake agreement with a major European trading group for 50 percent of its production for a minimum of five years.

Through its Sunlands Power joint venture with Sunlands Energy, Quantum Graphite plans to manufacture coarse-natural-flake-based thermal storage media sourced from the Uley mine to be fitted within Sunland Energy’s patented TES Graphite Cells technology for grid-connected, long-duration energy storage.