The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Growing demand for carboniferous mineral prompts Cedar Mountain to investigate NW Alaska prospect; change name to Graphite One
Graphite traditionally has been regarded as a mundane industrial mineral used in steelmaking, lubricants and pencil lead. Emerging applications such as lithium-ion batteries, fuel cells, and nuclear power generation are placing increased supply demands on this carbon polymer - a market shift not lost on Cedar Mountain Exploration Inc.
"The graphite market is only beginning to open up as green technology takes more precedence in the world today," according to the Edmonton, Alberta-based explorer. "Graphite is vital for lithium-ion batteries, pebble bed nuclear reactors, and fuel cells among other uses. This has allowed for the price of graphite to rise; in the past seven years, the price has nearly tripled. Graphite is the mineral of tomorrow and as such, cannot continue to be overlooked and undervalued."
Anticipating the demand for graphite to skyrocket, the explorer is taking a fresh look at the aptly named Graphite Creek project, a vast deposit of the carboniferous material situated some 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of the legendary gold mining town of Nome, Alaska.
A 100-meter thick layer of what is regarded as high-quality graphite has been traced for some five kilometers (three miles) along the north slopes of the Kigluaik Mountains since the deposit was discovered around 1907. Cedar Mountain geologists completed mapping and sampling at Graphite Creek in 2011, confirming historical investigations of the prospect.
"Cedar Mountain's early-stage work completed in 2011 (correlates) with historical exploration results increasing our level of confidence that Graphite Creek will become a significant graphite deposit," CEO Charles Chebry said in January when the company announced that it had acquired the property.
With wind in the sails of the graphite market, Cedar Mountain is changing its name to Graphite One Resources Inc. to reflect its focus on exploring a potentially vast and high-quality deposit of the increasingly important mineral.
Large flake graphite
Not all graphite is created equal, and the Graphite Creek deposit is believed to hold large quantities of a higher value variety of the mineral.
The most abundant form of naturally occurring graphite is the fine-grained amorphous variety. Resulting from thermal metamorphism of coal, this lowest-quality form of graphite is used traditionally in steelmaking, where its high heat resistance makes it an ideal liner for crucibles and key ingredient in bricks used to line the furnaces. It also serves as a carbon-boosting additive in the steel itself.
Lithium-ion batteries and other high-technology applications, however, require a higher order of the carbon polymer known as large flake graphite.
"Only 40 percent of world production yields flake graphite, the most desirable type for its suitability in high-value, high-growth applications," Technology Metals Research co-founder Jack Lifton explained in a recent interview with The Critical Metals Report. "Only flake and synthetic graphite - which is made from petroleum coke through a very expensive process - can be used in lithium-ion batteries, the current demand driver for this crucial substance."
Large flake graphite containing 94-97 percent carbon is currently selling for around US$3,000 per metric ton, a 300 percent increase over the price that the lithium-ion battery ingredient was fetching five years ago.
Graphite One Resources' Graphite Creek project has long been regarded as a source of the more desirable large flake graphite, a historical assumption that the company decided to test in 2011.
"Zones as much as 25 feet (eight meters) thick in the quartz-biotite-graphite schist and quartz-biotite-garnet-graphite schist contain perhaps as much as 10 percent graphite. Within these low-grade zones are lenses made up largely of relatively coarse graphite flakes, containing as much as from 50 percent to 90 percent of graphite by volume; the chief impurity is quartz, both milky and glassy," according to a 1944 U.S. Geological Survey report written by Robert Coates.
Laboratory analysis of three 15-kilogram samples collected by Cedar Mountain in 2011 confirms the potential for large flake graphite at the project.
One of the samples taken from a historical stockpile of high-grade material averaged 56.9 percent graphite. The other two samples - one of schist containing disseminated graphite and a second sample of mixed schist and massive graphite - returned 8.2 and 14.5 percent graphite, respectively.
"The weight distribution shows that about 57-71 (percent by weight) of all three samples is contained in the 10- by 40-mesh fraction, which corresponds to the highest graphite distribution of about 56-64 percent for each sample," Hazen Research Inc. reported after analyzing the samples.
Mesh size refers to the number of openings per linear inch of mesh, so the larger the mesh size the smaller the material.
To qualify as large flake, graphite particles must be larger than 80 mesh. These large flakes made up more than 75 percent of the graphite content of all three of the Graphite Creek samples analyzed by Hazen in 2011. The sample of mixed schist and massive graphite, at 93.6 percent, had the highest large flake graphite distribution.
Vast size potential
Though the Graphite Creek project has yet to be drilled, the 5-kilometer-long surface expression of the of graphite-bearing rocks hints at the vast size potential of the deposit.
At an average of 3 to 10 percent graphite, the currently estimated 200 million metric tons of ore observed along the Kigluaik Mountains could hold somewhere between 6 to 20 million metric tons of crystalline-flake graphite, according to a technical report written for Graphite One Resources (then Cedar Mountain) in November.
Travis Hudson, author of the report, is not new to the deposit. He has explored the potential of the deposit in the past, including a 1981 investigation for Anaconda Minerals Co.
Hudson said the Graphite Creek project, also known as the Kigluaik deposits, consists of two distinctive graphite-bearing schist intervals - biotite quartz schist and garnet biotite quartz schist.
The garnet biotite quartz schist hosts the highest concentrations of the prized crystalline flake graphite and is considered the high-priority target of Graphite One Resources' investigation of the project.
"It's about five kilometers in length, the average width we see is about 100 meters and the dip-length that we can see at surface we expect to be between 100 and 200 meters," Chebry told Mining News during a March 16 interview.
Overall, this 100-meter-layer is believed to average at least 8 percent graphite with high-grade lenses that average 55-60 percent graphite.
"The field and laboratory data now available enable the resource potential of the Kigluaik graphite deposits to be further clarified," Hudson concluded in his report.
Initial resource targeted
Following up on the field work it completed in 2011 and the historical data compiled by Hudson, Graphite One's 2012 exploration program will focus on producing an initial inferred resource for Graphite Creek.
Chebry told Mining News that he estimates the 2012 program will cost on the order of C$4 million but could go higher.
To fund its upcoming exploration program at Graphite Creek, Cedar Mountain closed a C$6.4 million financing in February.
Due to the highly conductive properties of graphite, the first phase of the 2012 program will involve flying an airborne electro-magnetic survey over the entire land package in the spring.
"This will really give us an idea of what is looming beneath the surface," Chebry said.
Guided by the results of the geophysical survey, Graphite One plans to kick off its 2012 drill program with two rigs.
"We are going to pattern-drill it to start with to test its continuity across the zones," Graphite One Resources Vice President of Exploration Dean Besserer told Mining News. "I am assuming that because it is fault-related there will be some complexity."
Information gleaned from this early drilling will help Besserer and his team zero in on specific areas of the vast deposit.
Chebry said the company aims to drill enough holes into the 5,000-meter-long deposit in 2012 to establish an initial inferred resource for Graphite Creek.
"Our goal for this year is to get enough drilling done to have an inferred resource after this season," he explained.
"Along with that, we want to do a whole lot more mapping and sampling over the whole property, because last year we identified another parallel zone which is just up-mountain from the high-priority zone, and there are other outcrops of high-grade material as well."
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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