Graphite One Inc. announced that on Jan. 15, 2021 it received notice that its Graphite Creek Project has been designated a High-Priority Infrastructure Project (HPIP) by the U.S. Government’s Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Committee (FPISC). The approval is the culmination of a process that began with the nomination on Oct. 4, 2019 by Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy of Graphite One’s project for High-Priority Infrastructure Project designation.
“Designating the Graphite Creek Project as a High-Priority Infrastructure Project will send a strong signal that the U.S. intends to end the days of our 100 percent import-dependency for this increasingly critical mineral,” said Dunleavy in his nomination letter.
According to the FPISC’s notice letter, the FPISC has “…determined, in consultation with [Office of Management and Budget] OMB and [Council on Environmental Quality] CEQ, that this project clearly qualifies under the ‘manufacturing’ and ‘renewable energy’ sectors, among several other sectors.”
With this FPISC determination, Graphite One can elect to list on the Federal Permitting Dashboard should the company choose to do so. The Federal Permitting Dashboard ensures that federal permitting agencies coordinate their project review authorities, resulting in a more efficient process, with more transparency for state agencies and the public. This designation does not remove any of the stringent environmental standards or permitting requirements necessary for the Graphite Creek project and enhances Graphite One’s ongoing commitment to local stakeholders for a transparent and thorough permitting process.
“Graphite One thanks Governor Dunleavy for nominating our project for the federal high-priority designation,” said Anthony Huston, CEO of Graphite One. “We see the fact that our project qualifies under the FPISC’s Renewable Energy and Manufacturing sectors as recognition of graphite as essential to a sustainable U.S. infrastructure supply chain.”
The Graphite Creek designation comes as a new U.S. Presidential Administration highlights electric vehicles (EV) and the EV infrastructure as central to green energy policy. According to renewable energy analyst Simon Moores of the UK’s Benchmark Minerals Intelligence: “What we expect from the Biden Administration is to simply make one of their policies to make gigafactories across the whole country at scale in order to turbo-charge and protect their biggest automobile companies such as Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) and General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM)”
At full production, Graphite One’s proposed advanced graphite product manufacturing plant - the second link in its proposed supply chain strategy - is projected in its Preliminary Economic Analysis to convert Graphite Creek’s annual 60,000 tonnes of graphite concentrate into 41,850 tonnes of EV-battery grade Coated Spherical Graphite and 13,500 tonnes of purified graphite powders.4
