Elcora Advanced Materials Corp. (ECORF)

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Elcora plans $5M Halifax plant
Elcora plans $5M Halifax plant aimed at electric car market---Bedford company says facility could be up and running in the next six months. A Bedford-based company is planning to open a $5-million manufacturing facility in Halifax within the next six months in its bid to grab a chunk of the electric car market. Itll be a pilot facility, Troy Grant, president and chief executive officer of Elcora Advanced Materials, said in an interview Thursday. Were looking at initially setting up a plant that will produce 2,000 tonnes of anode paste per year, said Grant. Later, we want to do a 20,000-tonne-a-year facility. The company snagged a $500,000 loan from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency in July to finance its Graphene Research and Development Centre and is now looking for financing for its proposed anode paste facility. Anode paste typically sells for $10,000 to $20,000 per tonne and Elcora Advanced Materials company is planning to come onto the market at somewhere between $12,500 to $15,000 per tonne. Those numbers would mean revenues of $27 million annually for the proposed anode paste facility which is to be in operation by the first quarter of 2017. It is expected to employ roughly 25 people, mostly engineers and lab technicians. Elcora Advanced Materials has already bought some of the needed equipment and is accepting resumes. Anode paste made with carbon and is used in the manufacture of rechargeable lithium ion batteries and the world market for the material is currently about 250,000 tonnes per year, said Grant. Elcora Advanced Materials foray into the anode paste market is part of its long-term strategic plan to be a vertically-integrated graphite and graphene company that mines its own graphite, conducts research and development, processes the raw material, and sells both it and products made from it. Graphene, which Elcora Advanced Materials is planning to put into production through its wholly-owned Graphene Corp. subsidiary, is one of those products. The company already makes it in small quantities in its Bedford research facility. In a nutshell, graphene is a futuristic material that consists of sheets of carbon rings that are no more than 10 atoms thick, or about one-tenth the size of a small virus. These super-thin sheets of carbon atoms are also super-strong, harder than diamond, and one of the best conductors of electricity ever discovered. The material has been described as something that can be used in a wide range of products, from bulletproof vests to water purifiers. Elcora is still only in the research and development stage of its graphene production since it needs to find a way to boost its yields. But the companys mining operations in Sri Lanka are in full swing and the Elcora Advanced Materials hit a milestone this week with its first shipment of graphite from the Ragedara mine in which it has a 40 per cent interest through its minority ownership in Sakura Graphite (PVT) Ltd. That Sri Lankan company also pays Elcora a 30 per cent management fee in exchange for the Nova Scotia companys investment which covers capital costs, including the processing plant. To date, weve invested up to $4 million (in Sakura and the Sri Lankan mine), said Grant. Although the Elcora Advanced Materials president would not divulge the size of the first shipment of graphite, which was handled by the companys marketing and distribution partner Thyssenkrupp Metallurgical Products, he did say Sakura is expected to ship 5,000 tonnes of graphite this year at prices which will range from $1,500 to $2,500 per tonne. Based on those figures, Sakuras Regedara mine in Sri Lanka could be expected to ship out $10 millions worth of graphite in the coming year and ramp up to $36 millions worth of graphite by 2019. Were looking to get to 18,000 tonnes a year in two to three years, said Grant. Its a vein-type developmentwith a 30-year mine life. That production of graphite from Sri Lanka is expected to provide the raw material for Elcora Advanced Materials proposed anode paste facility in Halifax and its graphene production facility yet to be developed. Elcora Advanced Materials stock, which trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker ERA and in Germany under the ELM symbol, closed on Thursday at 34 cents on heavier-than-average trading. The stock, which soared to 73 cents in late February after the company inked a marketing and distribution deal with ThyssenKrupp Metallurgical Products, one of the worlds leading commodity trading companies, has since gradually fallen back to roughly its former value. Elcora Advanced Materials has a market capitalization of $24.6 million. The company employs seven people in Bedford and, through its investment in the Sakura mining operation, another roughly 60 people in Sri Lanka. http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/1403635-elcora-plans-5m-halifax-plant-aimed-at-electric-car-market