Graphite One Resources (GOR) is to begin a drilling and sampling programme at the Graphite Creek Deposit in Alaska, US.
The Graphite Creek is the only advanced stage large-scale flake graphite deposit in the US, according to GOR. GOR aims to produce and deliver graphite that is used for anodes in lithium-ion batteries.
“The Graphite Creek Property hosts the largest known, high grade, large flake Graphite Deposit in the United States and North America, and we look forward to continuing to develop marketable graphite products to meet the global graphite demand, which is growing rapidly,” said Anthony Huston, president and director of GOR.
Mineralisation at the Graphite Creek is characterised by coarse large flake graphite greater than 0.18mm. In a technical report, GOR claimed to sit on an inferred resource of 284.47m tonnes of 4.5% carbon graphite, including 37.68m tonnes at 9.2% and 8.63m tonnes at 12.8% graphite content.
Tesla recently announced that it intends to make solely lithium-ion batteries at its so-called “gigafactory” and to only use materials sourced in North America. The demand of graphite is expected to grow as the electric vehicle industry will increase, according to Navigant Research. GOR said that the European Union and the US have declared graphite a supply critical mineral.
