Categories: Energy / General Market Commentary
Topics: General Energy / General Market Commentary

Graphite Forecast 2017: CEOs Weigh In

Graphite Forecast 2017: CEOs Weigh In

CEOs of Northern Graphite, Energizer Resources, Leading Edge Materials, and the director of Focus Graphite provide some insight.

The graphite market did not take off as much as analysts and companies expected this time last year. But there is still hope for the critical metal in 2017, specially in the value added sector, as some predict that prices could slightly rise in the next few months.

The Investing News Network reached out to a number of companies in the graphite sector to get their thoughts on 2016 and on what to expect from next year’s graphite’s outlook. CEO of Northern Graphite (TSXV:NGC) Greg Bowes, Craig Scherba CEO of Energizer Resources (TSX:EGZ), Blair Way, CEO of Leading Edge Materials (TSXV:LEM) and Chester Burt, Director of Focus Graphite (TSXV:FMS), were able to provide some insight.

A disappointing 2016
Optimism about the graphite market has been rising for the past two years. The development of new technology and in particular, lithium-ion batteries, were expected to rise demand and impact prices. But the critical metal’s prices remained low during the past twelve months.

Scherba said he had expected prices to be rebounding slightly throughout this year, but that only happened until the last quarter of 2016.

“We’re a little bit disappointed I guess along with everybody else. We had expected a lot earlier recovery than what we’ve seen,” he said.

Similarly, Bowes said: “I had hoped that growing demand from lithium ion batteries would have lead to higher graphite prices in 2016.”

When speaking about the past twelve months, Way was more optimistic and added: “It was a tough year 2015 so I was optimistic we would see things in the sector trending the right way and we saw a steady increase in the sector with a few expected wobbles along the way.”

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