Mozambique’s President Daniel Chapo opened a 200,000 metric ton per year graphite processing plant at a Chinese-owned mine on Friday, as the south-east African country boosts output of the battery mineral.
Annual global mined graphite production is 1.6 million metric tons, the United States Geological Survey estimates, and Mozambique is one of the world’s top producers of the mineral, which is an excellent conductor of heat and electricity and is used in batteries for electric vehicles and mobile phones.