May 25, 2021 12:00 PM
NextSource Materials Inc. and thyssenkrupp Materials Services to supply graphite for foundries and battery production
thyssenkrupp Materials Trading and Canadian battery materials development company NextSource Materials Inc. (Toronto Stock Exchange: NEXT) have entered into a long-term partnership and signed an offtake agreement for NextSource’s SuperFlake® graphite. The agreement covers the annual purchase of up to 35,000 tonnes of the graphite concentrate, to be mined at the company's Molo mine in Madagascar in the second quarter of 2022. The term of the agreement is ten years with an automatic five-year extension. NextSource’s SuperFlake® graphite has very high conductivity and, due to its high quality and flake size, is suitable for a wide range of applications, including in the foundry and refractories industries, powder metallurgy, and in the production of lithium-ion batteries.
Wolfgang Schnittker, CEO of thyssenkrupp Materials Trading, explains: “The trustful cooperation with NextSource enables us to further expand our strong presence in the international foundry and refractories industry. It is our unique selling point to competitively serve various industries but especially emerging industries and their highly specified requirements.”
NextSource President and CEO, Mr. Craig Scherba says: “This executed offtake agreement for the sale of our SuperFlake® graphite was the culmination of a multi-year process and is yet another significant milestone in the company’s strategy in becoming a graphite producer of consequence. We are extremely pleased to formalize this partnership with thyssenkrupp given their expertise, scale, and extensive global distribution network. We look forward to expanding our relationship together as we organically expand our graphite market share over the years to come.”
With this agreement, the raw materials trading experts are NextSource's global sales partner. In the first phase from April 2022, thyssenkrupp Materials Trading will purchase approximately 7,300 metric tons from NextSource. This initial volume will be used by the companies to verify run-of-mill production of SuperFlake® concentrate. Once complete, the annual offtake volume will increase to up to 35,000 tons by 2024.
Jörg Glebe, Chief Operating Officer of thyssenkrupp Materials Trading and responsible for the minerals business added: “The partnership with NextSource underlines the consistent continuation of our activities to expand our high-quality graphite supply sources outside of China. In particular, the distribution range of the graphite flakes enables us to supply our customers even more in accordance with their needs and to support them in their long-term growth plans.”
thyssenkrupp Materials Trading is an international trading and services company headquartered in Essen, Germany. Its product range includes raw materials such as alloys, nonferrous metals, minerals, coke, coal and ores, various raw materials for future technologies, metallurgical products such as steel and pipes, pipe accessories, finished steel and stainless steel, as well as trading with new and used industrial equipment, machine tools, spare parts, and structural elements for hydraulic steel engineering and the offshore sector, plus materials and logistics services of all kinds. The range is rounded out by tailored offers including financing and shipment.