Blogs

Oct 01 2013

Canadian Graphite & Graphene Will Be The Best In The World By: Lorne Woods, President and CEO

It looks as if some of the best graphite in the world is going to be stamped Made in Canada and there is every chance that Sunset Cove Mining is going to be going along for that wild triumphant ride.

On September 24, 2013 Mason Graphite issued a press release stating that during preliminary purification trials it had achieved 99.9% graphitic carbon, which is remarkably high.

It isn’t entirely unknown however. Zenyatta Ventures’ Albany deposit in northern Ontario has also stopped hearts with its 99.96 and 99.7% beneficiation tests.

In mining beneficiation is any one of a number of processes that can be used to separate the sought after ore from the dross, usually called gangue.

At this point the more knowledgeable of you might complain that I am comparing apples and oranges to no point at all because Mason Graphite’s Lac Guéret project is a conventional mining project while Zenyatta Ventures’ Albany deposit is an extremely rare hydrothermal, volcanic, vein deposit.

So rare that the only other known similar deposit is in Sri Lanka, where it has been mined since 1847.

Some of you may be wondering why purity is so important when it comes to graphite. The answer is simple and complex at the same time. Simple in that all you really need to know is that the higher the concentration of graphite the more valuable it becomes because higher purity graphite provides higher performance levels in end applications and results in higher market demand.

Graphite is a form of carbon and the carbon purity in natural graphite can vary from 70% to 99%. Synthetic graphite which is made by refining the petroleum coke resulting from refining sweet crude oil has a 99.5% purity level.

What all this boils down to is that both Mason Graphite and Zenyatta Ventures can compete with synthetic graphite on the world market. That’s important because it means that graphite produced by these two Canadian firms should sell at the same price as synthetic graphite.

Here are a few price ranges for synthetic graphite courtesy of Zenyatta Ventures: 99.5% purity; $4,000 to $5,000 a tonne, 99.9%, $20,000-$30,000 a tonne. This contrasts sharply with the current world price for natural graphite which has dropped to the $1200 per tonne range.

You may be wondering how this affects Sunset Cove Mining shareholders and as in real estate the answer is simple: location. Sunset Cove’s Lac Guéret West project butts up against Mason Graphite’s Lac Guéret project. The same Lac Guéret project which just posted a 99.9% graphite purity level after refining the ore using a simple economical refining method.

While it hasn’t been proven yet, we at Sunset Cove believe that the same graphite bearing mineralization that runs through the Mason Graphite property extends into our Lac Guéret property.

As anyone with a little knowledge of the mining industry knows exploration is a risky business. The chances of nabbing a ten bagger as they say in the industry are extremely low. At Sunset Cove we have always believed that the best way to improve the odds in our favor is to explore and acquire properties in proven mining locations where there are producing mines or significant discoveries. This philosophy has provided us with good results in Peru where work is ongoing at the Carolay Silver Polymetallic project and we have every reason to expect the same will hold true at Lac Guéret.

Lorne Woods Sunset Cove Mining President & CEO