Graphex Group Limited announced it has entered into an agreement with the Jixi Mashan Government on a project for a new production facility located in the Jixi (Mashan) Graphite Industrial Park (the Project). The agreement will allow Graphex to increase its annual production of graphite while establishing a graphite deep processing and production facility. The new site will have an intended output of 20,000 metric tons of high-purity spherical graphite in Phase I and an additional 10,000 metric tons of high-purity spherical graphite and 10,000 metric tons of battery anode materials in Phase II of the Project respectively.

Within the Jixi (Mashan) Graphite Industrial Park, the new factory for Phase I of the Project will feature five workshops across 270,000 square feet, an office building, and employee accommodation areas. The Project will roll out over the course of the next three years. Under the MOU, the Jixi Mashan Government will provide Graphex with the right to purchase the factory premise, while providing green electricity sources such as wind and solar to operate the facility.

Graphex believes, based on industry reports including Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, the combined annual demand for graphite anode material capacity to supply EV battery gigafactories in the U.S., Europe, and China will be over 4 million tons by 2030, which represents a 10X increase over the demand. In addition, as part of the agreement, Graphex Group has established a wholly foreign owned enterprise, Graphex (Heilongjiang) New Energy Technologies Company Limited, in Jixi City to carry out the proposed production facility. The added facility will now allow Graphex Group to gradually increase its annual production capacity to 40,000 tons metric tons of high-purity spherical graphite and 10,000 metric tons of battery anode materials in China starting in 2023.

Graphex continues development of a production plant for 15,000 metric tons of natural graphite battery anode material in Warren, Michigan through a joint venture and has recently announced a new initiative to establish a new pilot plant to produce high-purity spherical graphite within the same facility.