Syrah Resources Limited (ASX: SYR) has recommenced natural graphite production at its Balama Operation in Mozambique.
The company has achieved consistent production of on-specification natural graphite at Balama during March to date, positioning it ahead of schedule versus the expected lead time of two to three months for first production.
Syrah announced its decision to restart Balama production in late February 2021 following a temporary suspension of production in 2020 due to the impacts of COVID-19.
Managing Director and CEO, Shaun Verner, said Syrah will progressively increase plant utilisation and production volumes as the full contingent of labour at Balama continues to be reinstated.
During the period of temporary suspension at Balama, we reduced costs whilst also maintaining operating and marketing capability to ensure that we could promptly respond to an improvement in market conditions,” Mr Verner said.
“Our re-start progress to date is a testament to the ongoing preparedness work by the Balama Operations team during the temporary suspension and positions us well to ramp-up into improving market demand.”
Mr Verner said Syrah continues to progress towards becoming a vertically integrated producer of natural graphite Active Anode Material (AAM) to service ex-Asia markets and will operate Balama in parallel with progressing its natural graphite AAM project at Vidalia, Louisiana, USA.