Walkabout Resources Ltd (ASX:WKT) is rapidly ramping up dry graphite concentrate production at the Lindi Jumbo Graphite Project in Tanzania, now operating just 15% under nameplate capacity after producing 94 bags of graphite in a single day.
With the increase in production, the company exceeded its theoretical 'break-even' point in August, where potential profit from production equals its cost.
WKT says it has achieved good pricing for its graphite product with a large backlog of unfilled sales orders received from selected end-users.
To date, pricing has been in the range of US$1,080 to US$1,600 per tonne for coarse flake at 94%-95% total graphitic carbon and US$500 to US$750 per tonne of fine flake at 90%-95% TGC (outside of China).
High-grade deposit, lower cost curve
“The significant increase in plant availability and utilisation over the past month reflects the commissioning team’s focus and has enabled the processing teams to concentrate on optimising the value attributes of the Lindi Jumbo product,” Walkabout Resources managing director and CEO Andrew Cunningham said.
“Exceeding the theoretical breakeven output point is an important milestone to reach during the ramp-up phase of the project.
“Lindi Jumbo is already demonstrating the benefits of its very high-grade deposit thereby operating at the lowest end of the cost curve while achieving a higher basket price due to its greater proportion of coarse flake graphite products.
“We look forward to further increasing our production over the remainder of the quarter and shipping more high-quality product to our global customers.”
The company says purity and recovery levels are in line or better than its definitive feasibility study (DFS) expectations and the focus will now be on steadily increasing daily output and improving product purity, large flake retention and screening efficiency.