Sarytogan Graphite Project
Location
The flagship and namesake deposit is the Sarytogan Graphite Project located in the Karaganda (Qaraghandy) province of Central Kazakhstan. A positive Pre-Feasibility Study for the development of the project was published on 12 August 2024. The strategic location of the project places the company between the largest battery manufacturers in Europe and China.
Geology
The Sarytogan deposits are in the core of two northeast trending folds. The stratigraphy consisting of volcanic and carbonaceous sedimentary rocks. A granite pluton intruded the rocks with extensive contact metamorphism causing hornfels alteration including graphitisation of the carbonaceous rocks. Graphite-bearing black carbonaceous shale, siltstones and sandstones are overlain by grey- to dark-grey weakly carbonaceous siltstones and sandstones. Exploration has identified two zones of graphitic sediments being the Sarytogan Central and Sarytogan North graphite deposits.
Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves
The Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource of 229Mt @ 28.9% Total Graphitic Carbon (TGC) (Refer to ASX Announcement 27 March 2023).
A Pre-Feasibility Study on the project selected a 50,000 tpa staged development profile over an initial 60 year mine life. This allowed the declaration of an 8.6Mt at 30% TGC Probable Ore Reserve (refer ASX Announcement 12 August 2024).
Pre Feasibility Study
On 12 August 2024, Sarytogan Graphite completed Pre-Feasibility Study (“PFS”) for the project, which outlined a new long-life, high-margin graphite mine in Kazakhstan with potential to deliver strong financial returns and benefits to the regional economy.
The PFS outlined a tier-1 scale graphite development across 4 stages:
Stage 1a: 50ktpa beneficiation plant
Stage 1b: 6ktpa thermal reactor
Stage 2a: 2 additional thermal reactors
Stage 2b: 7ktpa spheronising plant and a 4ktpa coating plant
The staged development strategy allows Sarytogan to minimise initial investment outlay and deliver earlier cash flows, whilst retaining the optionality to scale up operations.
Mining and Processing
Mining at the Sarytogan Graphite Project is expected to be open pit utilising conventional truck and excavator methods.
The project concentrator facilities are expected to consist of a 150,000 t/a beneficiation plant producing 50,000 t/a graphite concentrate via 24/7 operations during the year. The concentration process will consist of crushing, grinding, flotation, filtration, drying, classification and packaging. The concentrate will either be bagged for sale or for purification.
The project thermal plant will be designed for a processing rate of 22,500 t/a, arranged in three trains with a nominal capacity of 7,500 t/a each. The thermal plant will be designed to operate 24/7 and be built across two stages, starting with one train (Stage 1), and expanded in year three of mining with two additional trains (Stage 2). Spheronisation is added at a pilot scale in Stage 1b and expansion is considered in Stage 2b alongside the addition of coating.
The project spheronising and coating plant relates to the final stage of the project development pipeline (Stage 2b) and utilises all or part of the production from thermal purification. The plant will produce Uncoated Spherical Purified Graphite (USPG) for lithium-ion battery anodes and Ultra High Purity Fines (UHPF) for advanced industrial use.
Flowsheet
Sarytogan has designed a flowsheet to produce 3 graphite products typical to place as many carbon units into as many markets as possible, leveraging the quality and size of the Mineral Resource.
PFS Outcomes
The PFS outlined attractive economic outcomes for Sarytogan across a long 60 year initial mine life.
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Modest US$62m initial capex for stage 1a
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US$252m capex for stage 2a
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33% IRR on stage 2a
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$US518m NPV(8%) for stage 2a
The maiden Ore Reserve covers only 4% of the mineral resource, highlighting the scale underpinning the resource. The long mine life also provides Sarytogan with significant leverage to critical minerals which are expected to benefit from global electrification and supply security requirements.The company has commenced customer-focussed early-works on a Definitive Feasibility Study including a 20t trial mine to collect Ore for vendor testing of processing machines and generation of samples for customers.
Compliance Statements
The information in this report that relates to other Exploration Results is cross referenced to the relevant announcements in the text. These reports are available at www.asx.com.au. The information in this report that relates to Sarytogan Mineral Resources was first reported in ASX announcement dated 27 March 2023. The information in this report that relates to Sarytogan Ore Reserves was first reported in ASX announcement dated 12 August 2024.
The Company confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information included in relevant market announcements and, in the case of estimates of Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves, that all material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning the estimates in the relevant market announcement continue to apply and have not materially changed. The Company confirms that the form and context in which the Competent Persons’ findings are presented have not been materially modified from the original market announcements.
The Company confirms that all the material assumptions underpinning the production target, or the forecast financial information derived from the production target, in the initial public report (12 August 2024) continue to apply and have not materially changed.