Canada-based Northern Graphite and Saudi industrial group Obeikan Investment have signed a financing agreement to jointly develop and operate a large-scale battery anode material (BAM) facility in Saudi Arabia through a joint venture company.

The $200-million BAM facility will have an initial annual production capacity of 25,000 tonnes. Construction of the facility is expected to start in 2026 and first-phase production is expected to begin in 2028. The facility will be scalable over time to meet growing global demand for graphite anode materials sourced outside of China.

The facility will be located in Yanbu, a strategically positioned industrial and logistics hub on the Red Sea that has direct access to European, North American and Middle Eastern markets.

Obeikan will hold a 51% stake in the joint venture company and Northern Graphite will hold 49%.

Obeikan will lead the organizing of local debt funding required to finance construction, development and commissioning of the plant. The partners will provide the remaining funding as equity in proportion to their ownership interests and through commercial banks.

Northern and Obeikan are in negotiations with battery manufacturers to secure long-term offtake agreements for the initial 25,000 tonnes per year of production. The joint venture will also enter into a long-term offtake agreement to purchase up to 50,000 tonnes of graphite concentrate annually from Northern’s Okanjande project in Namibia. That agreement will accelerate the restart and potential expansion of the graphite mine, which has been in a care and maintenance status since 2018.

“We are partnering with a well-financed and experienced industrial player, gaining scale, financing strength, and access to one of the world’s most strategically important industrial hubs, while accelerating the restart of our Okanjande mine in Namibia and advancing our broader mine-to-market strategy,” said Hugues Jacquemin, Chief Executive Officer of Northern Graphite.

Source: Northern Graphite