Great Lakes Graphite has received a purchase order from a Western European industrial customer, the company announced on Feb. 3.
The company said the order is for 400 kilograms of micronized natural flake graphite, from “a large corporation headquartered in Western Europe with two production facilities in North America and a third production facility in the Middle East.”
The product will be used to conduct production-scale qualification tests. The client was earlier supplied with two kilograms of the product for qualification testing.
Great Lakes Graphite said the customer manufactures foams and chemicals that are used in a number of industries to make a wide range of products that range from a wood substitute used in signage to cryogenic applications used in natural gas production processes.
In this particular case, the customer is targeting improved performance for a particular set of products, which has been achieved by adding graphite.
Paul Gorman, CEO at Great Lakes Graphite, said working with the customer represents new markets for the company.
“We have been enjoying strong early success with our synthetic graphite products and are now gearing up marketing efforts for our natural flake graphite products,” Gorman said in the release.
“We are continuing to work through our partners to manage the production of these initial orders and are able to do so until such time as we are prepared to initiate and transition manufacturing operations to the Matheson facility.”
Mike Coscia, Great Lakes’ senior vice-president of sales, said its sampling program has been a good way to attract new customers.
The company has received additional purchase orders for 40 tons of synthetic graphite from the same U.S. customer that has purchased more than 450 tons of graphite to date.
The company, which is based in Toronto, sources its graphite from DNI Metals and crushes it into fine powder form at a processing facility in Matheson, located 70 kilometres east of Timmins.
Graphite is used in a range of specialized products, such as lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and fuel cells for energy storage.
