Graphite is the single largest material in a lithium-ion battery — roughly 50 kg per EV. This site tracks where it is mined, refined and traded, using open data from USGS, BGS, UN Comtrade and the IEA.
Producing mines, processing and anode plants, development projects, and major trade flows. Tap a marker for details; toggle layers below. Circle size ≈ scale of operation.
From ore in the ground to the anode in your car battery, graphite typically crosses several borders — and almost always passes through China.
Mining is the easy part. The value, and the chokepoint, is in refining: turning flake or petroleum coke into battery-grade anode material. The IEA estimates China performs roughly 90% of the world's battery-grade graphite refining — ~95% of spherical graphite and ~90% of anode material.
Spherical graphite is made next to the flake mines: milling, spheronisation and acid purification cluster around the ore to cut transport costs of a low-yield process (~50% of flake becomes spheres).
Synthetic graphite plants follow cheap electricity, not ore. Graphitisation at ~3,000 °C is so power-hungry that capacity was built where coal and hydro power are cheapest.
Vidalia (USA, natural route, fed from Mozambique), Chattanooga and Kellyton (USA), Herøya (Norway, hydropower), Luleå (Sweden), Sejong (South Korea), Ibaraki (Japan) and new Chinese-built plants in Indonesia.
Since December 2023 China requires export permits for high-purity graphite products, citing dual-use concerns — a lever on every battery and defense supply chain downstream.
Graphitisation is one of the most electricity-intensive steps in any battery supply chain — the reason synthetic capacity sits next to cheap power, and the reason low-carbon graphite now commands a price premium.
Natural graphite trades under HS 2504; processed anode material under HS 3801/3824. China dominates exports of both raw flake and value-added spherical graphite (SPG).
Oversupply and competition from synthetic graphite pushed natural flake prices to historic lows by late 2025, even as battery demand kept growing.
Concentration is even higher downstream than at the mine. The IEA projects China will still supply around 80% of battery-grade graphite in 2035.
of world natural graphite mine production came from China in 2025. Its estimated share along the battery anode chain:
Graphite is not just a battery mineral. Its heat resistance (it sublimates above 3,600 °C), conductivity and neutron-moderating properties make it a defense-critical material — which is why China's 2023 export controls on high-purity graphite explicitly cite dual-use concerns, and why the U.S. keeps it on the National Defense Stockpile list.
Nozzles, nose cones and re-entry components: graphite withstands exhaust gases hotter than 3,000 °C without deforming, so nearly every solid-fuel missile contains machined high-purity graphite.
Nuclear-grade graphite moderates neutrons in reactors, including naval and research reactors. It requires extreme purity — one of the hardest grades to source.
Carbon/graphite composites reduce weight and radar signature in aircraft, drones, submarines and armor systems.
Graphite filament munitions, used against power grids in Iraq (1991) and Serbia (1999), short-circuit transmission lines without destroying them.
Graphite electrodes are consumed in electrical-discharge machining and steelmaking for artillery, armor plate and precision defense components.
Every drone, radio and electrified military vehicle carries graphite anodes — analysts estimate some defense applications could face shortages within 30–90 days of a full supply cutoff.
A paradox market: flake prices at historic lows, yet record public money flowing into ex-China capacity. Four places where capital is concentrating — presented as observation, not investment advice.
93.5% preliminary antidumping duties on Chinese anode material (2025) plus IRA credits created a sheltered market. Graphite One's Alaska-to-Ohio chain has a $37.5M DoD grant and a $2.1B EXIM Bank loan invitation; Vidalia, Chattanooga and Kellyton are ramping.
Mozambique, Madagascar and Tanzania mine some of the world's cheapest flake and hold ~23% of known reserves. Assets are cheap at today's prices; the bet is on ex-China feedstock demand from U.S., Korean and European anode plants.
Graphitisation is so power-hungry that clean, cheap electricity is itself the asset: buyers pay a reported €1,500–3,000/t premium for verified low-CO₂ anode material (Vianode in Norway, Nouveau Monde in Québec).
Chinese oversupply keeps prices below most Western projects' costs; synthetic graphite is taking share from natural; qualification with cell makers takes years (see Syrah–Tesla). Most projects only work with policy support.
The East African graphite belt — Mozambique, Tanzania, Madagascar — already holds about 23% of the world's known reserves. The real number is likely higher: much of the continent has never been systematically mapped at modern standards.
Systematic geoscientific mapping is the public good that unlocks discovery: without airborne geophysics and modern geological maps, deposits stay invisible and exploration capital goes elsewhere. UN agencies and the African Union have flagged the mapping gap as a primary obstacle; programs like PanAfGeo (EU–OAGS) train African geological surveys and co-fund mapping, but coverage remains a fraction of what Australia or Canada maintain as baseline infrastructure. For graphite specifically, known deposits cluster along the Mozambique Belt — a geological unit that runs through half a dozen more countries where equivalent rocks remain barely surveyed.
China produced roughly 82% of the world's mined natural graphite in 2025, according to USGS estimates, out of about 1.8 million tonnes mined worldwide.
The IEA estimates China performs roughly 90% of the world's battery-grade graphite refining and about 95% of spherical graphite production, because spheronisation and purification cluster near Chinese flake mines and cheap electricity, and because graphitisation for synthetic graphite is extremely energy-intensive.
Graphite is the single largest material in a lithium-ion battery by weight, at roughly 50 kg per electric vehicle.
The United States has 100% net import reliance on natural graphite, according to USGS data.
We produce bespoke, source-cited research on graphite and other strategic minerals — supply-chain mapping, trade-flow analysis, country and commodity deep-dives — built on the same open data behind this dashboard.
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