Sarytogan Graphite Limited (ASX:SGA) through its 100% owned subsiduary company, Ushtogan LLP, is the 100% owner of the giant and high-grade Sarytogan Graphite Project.
The Company successfully listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in July 2022 raising $8.5M.
The Sarytogan Graphite Project is located in Central Kazakhstan, 190km from the industrial city of Karaganda, Kazakhstan’s 4th largest city. The 70km2 exploration concession is serviced by excellent infrastructure including highways and sealed roads, abundant water, and high voltage powerlines within 2km of the site.
Kazakhstan is a modern and established mining jurisdiction with its mining code based on the Western Australian Mining Act. The country produces 40% of the world’s uranium and is ranked 12th and 13th for minerals and oil and gas production respectively. The Company has an established team in-country with the knowledge and skills to navigate government processes as well as established industry connections to rapidly progress exploration and development activities.
The Sarytogan Graphite Deposit was first explored during the Soviet era in the 1980s with sampling by trenching and diamond drilling. Metallurgical testwork successfully produced graphite concentrate (reported in the 23 February 2022 Prospectus).
Diamond drilling and surface sampling resumed after a 30-year hiatus in 2019 that enabled the estimation of an Inferred Mineral Resource of 209Mt @ 28.5% Total Graphitic Carbon (TGC) for 60Mt contained graphite by CSA Global.
Graphite is a crystalline allotrope of carbon. It is extremely soft, cleaves with very light pressure, and has a very low specific gravity. Although graphite is flexible, it is not elastic and has high electrical and thermal conductivity. Graphite has a number of established industrial uses due to these exceptional physical properties including in refractories and foundries, lubricants, automotive parts, batteries as well as advanced materials such as expanded graphite and graphene. Significant growth is forecast in the use in electric vehicle and other battery uses. The development of more efficient battery chemistries focusses on the proportion of nickel, manganese and cobalt in the battery cathode. On the anode side of the lithium ion battery however, graphite is unsubstitutable.
The 2022 work program includes diamond drilling both within and beyond the established mineral resource as well as metallurgical testwork and product development.
