South Star Battery Metals Corp revealed that the groundbreaking ceremony and start of Phase 1 construction for the Santa Cruz Graphite Mine in southern Bahia, Brazil would take place on June 2, 2022.
The Vancouver, British Columbia-based battery metals project developer focused on the acquisition and development of near-term production projects in the Americas said the ceremony will include local, state and federal officials, local and regional stakeholders, as well as South Star’s management team.
The company described the event as “an important milestone celebrating more than a decade of development work,” with the first new commercial graphite production in the Americas planned for the second quarter of 2023. Brazil is the second-largest graphite-producing region in the world with more than 80 years of continuous mining.
In a statement, South Star CEO Richard Pearce said: “South Star is very excited to share this important milestone with our partners, the local community, elected officials and stakeholders, and we would like to thank everyone involved in this important achievement and their on-going support.”
The South Star boss noted that the company is “looking forward” to kicking off construction and continuing its focused approach to delivering on its long-term objectives.
“The start of commercial production is now in sight, and this is the perfect time to have a strategic, scalable asset in an important jurisdiction coming online in the critical battery metals supply chain,” added Pearce.
South Star’s next project in the development pipeline is a project in Alabama located in the middle of a developing electric vehicle, aerospace and defence hub in the southeastern United States.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive