Resumen de China's slowdown leaves graphite industry with unshakable hangover
Despite being the world's only commercial source of this rare type of high purity graphite, which is used in thermal and high friction applications such as car brakes and clutches, Sri Lanka's vein graphite producers had another challenging year in 2015, in terms of production and sales. This compounded an already fragile market situation for the country, which only recently emerged from civil war and possesses only rudimentary types of beneficiation technology.
Flake graphite is used as a feedstock to make spherical graphite, which in turn is used to produce anode material for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. Prices for processed spherical graphite have not tracked the raw material price downward, but have not increased either so far this year.
Synthetic graphite's greater consistency in purity and availability offsets a price disadvantage compared to the mined form of the mineral, although a number of junior graphite companies have claimed the ability to iron out quality issues and guarantee supply of consistent natural material that matches or even exceeds the performance of synthetic graphite in battery and other applications.
