Denmark’s export fund backs Greenland graphite mine with 6M loan

[Redator]

EIFO, Denmark’s official export credit agency, is providing a 5.2-million-euro ($6 million) loan to UK-based junior GreenRoc Strategic Materials (LON: GROC) to support its development of a past-producing graphite mine located in southern Greenland.

In a statement released on Wednesday, EIFO said the loan to GreenRoc builds on its broader commitments in Greenland, which include loans, guarantees and investments of nearly 52 million euros across 25 different companies in a range of industries.

“EIFO is pleased to support GreenRoc as the company takes its next crucial steps towards contributing to the supply of indispensable raw materials for Europe’s green transition and defence industry,” stated Peter Boeskov, chief commercial officer at EIFO.

“With GreenRoc, we are backing a company with the potential to play a pivotal role in securing graphite supply chains and creating jobs in Greenland,” EIFO CEO Peder Lundquist added.

Graphite is designated as a critical raw material by NATO and the EU for its importance in the battery, energy storage and defence technology supply chains. Currently, China dominates the world’s graphite supply chain, controlling approximately 80% of natural graphite extraction and nearly 100% of the downstream processing.

George Frangeskides, chairman of GreenRoc, said the loan provides the company with “a viable financing route” to develop its plans to establish European domestic production of high-tech, high-demand graphite materials.

Shares of GreenRoc rose by 13% at Wednesday’s close in London, for a market capitalization of £7.5 million. Earlier, it had surged as high as 25% following the EIFO loan announcement.

Historic graphite mine

GreenRoc is currently developing the historic Amitsoq mine, which holds one of the world’s highest-grade graphite deposits. To date, a JORC-compliant resource of 23 million tonnes grading more than 20% graphite has been defined at Amitsoq, which the company says is enough to sustain two decades of production.

The last time that Amitsoq was in production was over a century ago, between 1915 to 1922, when expertise on the separation of graphite flakes was still in a nascent stage.

After advancing the project significantly in recent years, GreenRoc published a preliminary economic assessment of the Amitsoq mine in 2023, with a planned mining rate of 400,000 tonnes per year producing approximately 80,000 tonnes of graphite concentrate. The company also plans to develop the capacity to process the graphite concentrate into active anode material for the production of Li-ion batteries, as well as flexible graphite, widely used in the defence industry.

Important milestone

The EIFO loan is expected to advance the development at both the graphite mine and the proposed downstream graphite processing facility. GreenRoc’s focus on domestic extraction of graphite represents a strategically important opportunity to strengthen the EU and NATO Alliance’s access to critical raw materials, the company said.

Alba Mineral Resources, which holds a 25.78% stake in GreenRoc, described the EIFO financial backing as “the most important milestone for GreenRoc since its IPO in late 2021” in a separate press release.

“We also see it as due recognition of the inherent quality of our Amitsoq project and an endorsement of our ambitions to establish a full-scale processing plant in Europe for the production of active anode material for the EV sector,” GreenRoc’s Frangeskides also said.