• European projects seek African graphite to support battery-grade processing in Europe

• Northern Graphite and Blencowe Resources supply material from Namibia and Uganda

• The push aims to reduce Europe’s near-total dependence on Chinese graphite processing

Europe is increasingly looking to African graphite to reduce its dependence on China for battery materials, as it steps up efforts to build a domestic value chain for electric vehicle batteries.

Canadian mining company Northern Graphite said on February 2 that it has joined USE-G, a new European project focused on developing graphite processing technologies. Under the initiative, the company will supply graphite from its Okanjande mine in Namibia. Northern Graphite joins UK-based Blencowe Resources, which is already involved in a similar European research program backed by its Orom-Cross graphite project in Uganda.

Europe currently relies heavily on China for the purification, coating, and shaping technologies needed to convert graphite into battery-grade material. In some cases, Chinese imports account for up to 100% of Europe’s supply of processed graphite. Norwegian company Vianode, which develops battery graphite processing technologies, estimated in 2023 that China still held a technological lead of around 10 to 15 years in the battery anode segment.

The USE-G project is led by Germany’s Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, alongside German companies Rain Carbon Germany and H.C. Starck Tungsten. Its objective is to narrow this gap by developing a fully European graphite processing route. The project is supported by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, which is contributing €1.14 million ($1.34 million) to a total budget of €1.7 million.

For Northern Graphite, the initiative illustrates how natural graphite produced in Canada and Namibia can be processed in Europe into next-generation battery materials, said Chief Executive Officer Hugues Jacquemin.

At a broader level, the Safeloop project is another European research and innovation initiative aimed at developing safer and more sustainable battery cells for the automotive industry. Blencowe Resources joined Safeloop in 2024 as the exclusive supplier of graphite for the project. Its Orom-Cross project in Uganda is not yet in production, but Blencowe is targeting a start-up in the first half of 2027. At Okanjande, while the mine already exists, production has been suspended for several years, and Northern Graphite said its participation in USE-G depends on operations restarting.

While these research and development initiatives could help validate the quality of African graphite, its large-scale integration into Europe’s automotive industry will depend mainly on commercial agreements. Several European companies are beginning to position themselves, including Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Materials, which has signed an offtake agreement for Malagasy graphite with Canada’s NextSource Materials.

Emiliano Tossou