to an estimated 65,000 tonnes in 2025 — making Brazil the second-largest
non-Chinese producer after Tanzania and edging past Mozambique. The
country's 74-million-tonne reserve base is the second-largest globally,
and the combination now makes Brazil a strategically important graphite
supplier outside China.¹
natural-graphite production of approximately 1,800,000 tonnes in 2025,
up from 1,550,000 tonnes in 2024.¹ China dominates at roughly 82 percent
of global output, with 1,400,000 tonnes estimated for 2025. Outside
than doubled to 75,000 tonnes, Mozambique rose from 39,000 to 60,000
tonnes as an Australian-operated mine resumed production, and Brazil
lifted to 65,000 tonnes from 58,000.
tonnage (roughly 80,000 tonnes), so the full non-Chinese ranking in 2025
reads Madagascar first, Tanzania second, Brazil third and Mozambique
fourth — a very different mix from what was conventional thinking even
three years ago, when Brazil was a minor producer and Mozambique and
Madagascar dominated the non-Chinese narrative.
been ramping through 2025, accounting for the bulk of the national
production increase. Boa Sorte, in Santa Bárbara (Minas Gerais), is a
flake-graphite operation operated by a private Brazilian company with
foreign joint-venture participation. Santa Cruz, also in Minas Gerais,
runs a similar flake-graphite concentrate product stream.¹
The Brazilian graphite story also has an earlier chapter worth noting.
operating in South America — sold its Brasil Graphite franchise to South
drilling, resource definition, pilot plant and pre-feasibility study.
a Brazilian graphite asset and effectively seeded the institutional
narrative that Brazilian flake-graphite geology could support
commercial, export-oriented operations. The current Boa Sorte, Santa
of exploration helped establish.
that Brazilian crystalline schist host rocks produce. Flake graphite,
particularly the higher-purity fractions, commands a premium over
amorphous graphite and is the preferred feedstock for lithium-ion
battery anode material — which means the production mix coming out of
end-use.
import unit values for flake graphite delivered at U.S. foreign ports
reached approximately US$1,000 per tonne, while amorphous graphite
traded at US$470 per tonne and lump/chip graphite (primarily from Sri
high-purity flake streams therefore hit the middle-to-upper end of the
value range with their standard product.
unusually favourable because of a specific U.S. trade action. In
petitioned the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) and the U.S.
in graphite active anode material (AAM). The ITC determined that AAM
from China was likely being sold at less than fair market value.¹
duties at 93.50 percent and countervailing duties ranging from 11.58
percent to 721.03 percent depending on the Chinese supplier.¹ Those
duties substantially changed the economics of sourcing Chinese AAM for
positioning than they had expected 18 months earlier.
tonnes, up from 28,100 tonnes in the same period of 2024. The leading
sources were China (55 percent despite duties), Indonesia (31 percent)
and South Korea (14 percent) — a distribution that reflects how buyers
adjusted their sourcing during the policy transition.¹
retains roughly 82 percent of global natural-graphite production in
months of 2025 totalled 115,000 tonnes — 6 percent higher than the
equivalent period in 2024 — and spherical purified graphite (SPG)
exports rose even faster, reaching 37,400 tonnes through September, a 29
percent year-on-year increase.¹
form of natural graphite used primarily as battery anode material.
and in 2025 they expanded capacity both domestically and through
cross-border operations — including a new facility in Central Java,
explicitly positioned to work around U.S. and European trade
restrictions on Chinese-origin SPG.
non-Chinese producer over 12 months is more than a statistical shift. It
signals that the country has industrial infrastructure, mineralogy and
operational capability to become a meaningful player in a commodity that
most Western buyers need to source from somewhere other than China. The
current production rates it represents more than 1,000 years of output —
meaning reserves are not the binding constraint on Brazilian graphite
growth.²
on Chinese AAM, Brazilian flake concentrate processed through
non-Chinese SPG facilities represents a credible sourcing path. Korean,
and several joint-development conversations between Brazilian upstream
operators and non-Chinese processors have accelerated during the year.