Graphite resources in Africa: carbon for decarbonisation

Graphite is a crystalline form of carbon, a native element and one of the softest known minerals (less than 1 on the Mohs scale). Flake graphite is the main commercial form of graphite, with the other commercial forms being amorphous and vein graphite. As well as the long-standing use of graphite in applications such as refractories, brake linings, lubricants and pencils, it is also much sought after as a ‘battery raw material’ for use as the anode in lithium-ion batteries. China dominates the supply chain as it produces 65% of the worlds graphite and is the only country that produces High Purity Spherical Graphite (HPSG) used to make anodes. The demand for graphite is expected to quadruple from 1.1 million tonnes in 2020 to 4 million tonnes by 2030. New sources and supply chains are needed to bridge the gap between supply and demand caused by the increasing need for battery raw materials. This is where Africa enters the picture. Historically Africa is an established producer of graphite. Madagascar has been producing graphite for over 100 years and Zimbabwe was a significant producer in the 1980s and 1990s. In the last 5 to 10 years, exploration and development of graphite resources in Africa has exploded with advanced exploration projects across the continent, especially in eastern Africa. The Mozambique belt in eastern Africa is the focus of much of the attention. It consists of high-grade metamorphic rocks such as schist, gneiss and marble that are host to graphite deposits in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. Balama in Cabo Delgado Province in northern Mozambique is claimed to be one of the largest graphite deposits in the world with a JORCcompliant resource of 1.4 billion tonnes at a grade of 10% graphite and has a production capacity of 350,000 tonnes per year of flake graphite concentrate. The plan is that small flake graphite (75-150 μm) will be exported from Balama to a battery anode plant currently under construction in the USA. This will be the first major integrated producer of natural graphite HPSG outside of China. By 2030, it is likely that Africa will have overtaken China as the leading global producer of graphite. However, it is equally likely that the production of HPSG for lithium-ion batteries will remain outside of Africa in China, Europe and the USA. This means that, unless the capacity to produce HPSG and battery anodes is developed in Africa, much of the economic benefit arising from their graphite resources will also remain out of Africa.