is on the fast-track to production and cash flow, delivering bulk samples from its Aluketiya and Pandeniya high-grade graphite projects in Sri Lanka to Wuhan University of Technology in China.

Should metallurgical tests be positive, the company could be in position to start ramping up commercial production of spherical graphite for use in batteries later next year.
       
Aluketiya produced high-grade graphite for several decades until the operation was stopped in the 1960s while Pandeniya contains numerous historical adits, shafts and remnant graphite dumps.

Sri Lanka is the only region in the world which produces commercial quantities of vein graphite with greater than 90% total graphitic carbon (TGC).

Metallurgical tests to determine the suitability of converting MRL’s high-grade vein graphite to premium-priced spherical graphite used in batteries will take about six weeks.

If these confirm that MRL’s graphite is suitable, the company intends to issue samples to major battery manufacturers with the objective of securing offtake agreements.

Its strategy to fast-track the start of production and cash flow is underpinned by several factors including Aluketiya being already covered by a mining licence while an application for a mining licence at Pandeniya is underway.

In parallel with the test work, MRL is now refurbishing some of the shafts at Pandeniya to prepare them for production.

Wuhan University of Technology possesses 27 research centres, including two State Key Laboratories, a State Engineering Laboratory and provincial or ministerial level laboratories in the areas of new materials, new energy, transportation and logistics, mechatronics and automobile, information technology as well as resources and environmental technology.

(Proactive Investors Australia)