graphite / graphene

the hottest market sector right now? yep, u got it: graphite / graphene ... it melts at 3,700 degrees celsius :-)

well, maybe there are also other hot sectors out there i do not look at (military, nuclear industry, government bonds, ...), but among my commodity based stuff is graphite the only one which performs well recently. so what are the carbon heroes of my portfolio?

• focus metals / focus graphite
• graphit kropfmühl
• lara explorations
• northern graphite
• SGL carbon
• standard graphite corp 
• strike gold / strike graphite
• zimtu capital

well, standard graphite corp (TSX-V:SGH) was the company which was presented by its CEO, the highly gifted public speaker chris bogart in munich 2day. ive bought few shares (very few) 2 days ago @ CAD 0.61 in order to generate some relationship to its story ... the price 2day? CAD 0.73 with a plus of 13.64% in the early market hours. what the hell is going on? it isnt abt the road-show only? and why did i buy only so few shares? u know why, dont u? of course, i dont really like 2 buy stocks which has tripled in the last few weeks/months, so i just made a small pilot buy and gonna watch this small canadian company from now on.

btw, the main reason ive attended the 2days presentation was dietmar siebholz. folks, thats the guy who called the precious metals rally, the rare earths mania and the graphite madness way before theyve started. so you better listen when dietmar speaks, u see? and yes, his suggestion focus metals from last munichs precious metals show is one of very very few of my stocks which are up since then. imho dietmar is an engineer whos investment approach is often driven by the newest technological developments, so u can be sure the demand for graphite will go up like crazy soon. of course, he told many things where is this stuff going to be used like batteries, green energy, etc and so on. just ask wikipedia, my dear. but if u asked me, we shouldnt ignore the classical lead pencil use case as well. not every blogger blogs via internet like me, there are still many millions paper diary writers out there, arent they? lol

anyway, as long as china cornered the supply side of graphites supply-demand-equation, im not going 2 worry abt any usage of that black lightweight conductive fire resistant metal which looks like plastic 2 me.

what the hell is graphene? some very pure graphite i guess. pls dont ask me any details, u know ive no clue abt technology and i dont care 

source: http://www.standardgraphite.com

any additional insights? coming soon or never :-)

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folks, thx 2 TecTonics post here (extracted from: Feb 14, 2012 | Posted by: MiningFeeds.com) i can enhance few graphite basics:

Supply and Demand

The natural graphite market is 1-1.2 million tons per year and consists of several different forms of graphite – flake, amorphous and lump. Historical applications primarily use amorphous and lump graphite, most newly emerging technologies and applications use flake graphite. Of the up to 1.2 million tons of graphite that are processed each year just 40% is flake.

China, India and Canada are responsible for most graphite mining and processing with China producing the lion’s share at 70–80%. China’s production is 70% amorphous and lower value small flake graphite.

Currently China imports a significant amount of North Korea’s large flake graphite production raising considerable doubts in regards to China’s abilities to ramp up its graphite supply. Indeed China has already taken steps to retain its graphite resources by restricting its export quota - China imposed a 20% export duty, a 17% VAT and also closed state owned enterprises.

“The days of cheap, abundant graphite from China are over.” Industrial Minerals Magazine May, 2011.

It’s thought that the increased use of lithium-ion batteries could gobble up well over 1.6 Mt of flake graphite per year by 2020 - only flake, upgraded to 99.9% purity and synthetic graphite (made from petroleum coke, a very expensive process) can be used in lithium-ion batteries.

“Annual flake graphite production will have to increase by a factor of six by 2020 to meet incremental lithium carbonate requirements for batteries.” Canaccord research report.
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damn! if u asked me, this graphite madness is more an advertisement/promotion driven sector than a real supply demand issue ... it is simply too hot 

you still remember all these 'issues': gold, silver, solar/wind energy, uranium, oil, wheat, base metals, potash, lithium, rare earths, ... of course, there is some need for the stuff, but the promotion machinery runs the prices up like crazy and some time later they fell by 50%-80% ... hmmmm, this could be an exit strategy game, isnt it?

folks, next 'prove' that the graphite market is too hot? there is not enough independent information out there! the most media just copies the 1 or 2 existing analyses all over the web / print media, even the pictures are often the same (e.g. projected demand) ... OMG 

btw, if you are interested in some future hot market, you should prolly consider VANADIUM. of course, its also used in batteries, but dietmar siebholz thought that the techn. research isnt that far yet to already proven that this technology would really work fine