North American battery manufacturers will pay substantially more to get their hands on local graphite supply as producers face higher production costs and more demand for lower-carbon products, according to industry participants.

Battery manufacturers are currently dependent on China for graphite, as the country extracts around 70% of the world's natural graphite and controls almost 100% of the refining process, according to the International Energy Agency. Governments are pushing for the electric vehicle supply chain to be localized to remove the geopolitical risk of a Chinese monopoly, and at the same time, many consumers want a supply chain meeting higher standards for environmental, social and governance issues.

Several new graphite projects have emerged to fill the gap, but a budding North American market will not be price competitive against a mature Chinese market, executives from junior graphite explorers and miners told S&P Global Commodity Insights.

"You will see a major disconnect in the future between pricing in North America and China," Eric Desaulniers, president and CEO of Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc., told Commodity Insights. "We expect, in the future, the customer will be willing to pay a premium compared to China of between 30% and 50%."

Graphite comprises most of the anode component of lithium-ion batteries, with few alternatives expected to be commercially available before the end of the decade. A boom in EV sales is expected to help raise graphite demand by more than four times by 2030 as compared to 2022, according to International Energy Agency forecasts.

Higher capital costs

The price of battery carbon materials, including battery-grade graphite, that were imported into the US in May averaged $5,328.73 per metric ton, data from S&P Global Market Intelligence shows. That is a 25.9% decline from January and a 29.9% drop from the 2022 high that was recorded in July of that year.

Nouveau Monde Graphite expects the price of battery-grade graphite in North America to be between $8,707 and $10,874 per metric ton over the life of its integrated graphite development in Quebec, according to an August 2022 feasibility study that cites forecasts from Benchmark Minerals. The company's integrated project comprises the Matawinie graphite mine and the Becancour VAP battery material plant.

North American producers emphasized the need for a graphite price that covers capital costs as they work to get off the ground.

"The conversation that I have with my customers is, 'I understand my price is high, but I have to invest $1.4 billion to produce that graphite if you want it available in 2026,'" Northern Graphite Corp. CEO Hugues Jacquemin told Commodity Insights. Northern Graphite owns the preproduction-stage Bissett Creek project in Ontario and the Lac des Iles mine in Quebec.

"If they're not willing to pay a price between $9,000 and $12,000 per ton for the material, there is no way we can justify the capital to produce the material," Jacquemin added.

The US government has released a slew of initiatives such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act as "essential first steps" to support the industry's growth, but "China has had a 20-year head start," a representative from Novonix Ltd. told Commodity Insights in an email response. The US should reimplement the 25% tariff on Chinese graphite imports that was waived in 2020, the representative said.

"The cost of capital for a new industry is inherently higher in North America than that of which is already established in China," the representative added. "Manufacturers in China do not face the same environmental and permitting challenges and have different cost structures that impact how quickly new plants can start production as well as the materials used in the production process."

Novonix produces synthetic graphite, and the company has operations in the US and Canada.

Artificial vs. natural graphite

Battery-grade graphite, or coated spherical graphite, can be made using artificial and natural graphite. The US imported natural graphite at a price of about $2,135/t and artificial graphite at $5,464/t in May, according to Market Intelligence data.

Natural and artificial graphite prices have not been immune to a slow recovery of Chinese demand after the government canceled its EV subsidy program at the end of 2022. Prices also face pressure from the growing capacity of artificial graphite production in China.

Chinese artificial graphite producers are using "aggressive and, in our view, unsustainable behavior" to put pricing pressure on natural graphite producers when recovering EV sales will "require higher prices to incentivize increased production," Syrah Resources Ltd. CEO Shaun Verner said July 18 during a second-quarter earnings call.

Syrah Resources' Balama mine in Mozambique hosts the world's second-largest reserves and resources, containing an estimated 120.1 million metric tons of natural graphite, Market Intelligence data shows.

Most battery producers mix the two graphite types as artificial graphite has a longer life cycle, and natural graphite offers greater energy density.

However, China's graphite industry may fall short, as consumers increasingly demand a more transparent and sustainable battery supply chain. The artificial form of graphite is primarily produced using needle coke, a byproduct of the oil refining process, and China primarily produces it at plants running on coal-fired electricity, said Robert Pell, founder and CEO of Minviro. Minviro is an environmental consultancy that undertakes life cycle assessments for the mining industry.

Processing synthetic graphite requires three times the amount of energy that natural graphite processing requires, according to data from Market Intelligence. The energy intensity of the synthetic material usually drives up costs, but China offers subsidies on energy, industry participants said. "That is embedded in those final products," Pell said.

Paying the premiums

Producing natural or synthetic graphite in North America and processing it will require buyers to pay a premium for ESG compliance, localization and logistics, according to Nouveau Monde Graphite's Desaulniers, who expects sales to be made primarily through long-term contracts.

Graphite is only 9% of the total cost of the battery, Desaulniers said. Executives are confident customers will be willing to pay the difference for locally made graphite that meets higher ESG standards.

"Even if the graphite prices triple, it still would have a very small impact on the overall cost of the battery," Jacquemin said.

The Inflation Reduction Act is expected to help support the local graphite industry by offering a tax credit of up to $7,500 to consumers who purchase an EV that uses a certain amount of materials produced domestically or from partners that have free-trade agreements with the US.

"If I just take the portion of that tax credit that relates to graphite and I turn it into a $1-per-kilogram premium, the reality is that gives me a cushion of maybe $1 to $2 per kilogram that I can charge as a premium versus the Chinese," Jon Jacobs, chief commercial officer of Westwater Resources Inc., told Commodity Insights. "Now I'm in business."

Westwater owns two graphite projects in Alabama, known as Coosa and Bama.

The outcome of talks between buyers and producers is expected to set up the market for several years. "We need to not only create projects but create the market, and create a pricing [index] outside China," Desaulniers said.

S&P Global Commodity Insights produces content for distribution on S&P Capital IQ Pro.