Mason Graphite has made a down payment to a global manufacturing leader in minerals and metals processing technology, confirming a $12.2 million purchase order issued in December 2017 covering approximately 30% of all the required equipment for the processing plant. This order covers key equipment with critical delivery schedule such as all the mills, flotation cells and columns, thickeners and filters.

Benoît Gascon, President and CEO of Mason Graphite , commented: “The execution of the project has recently met some major milestones, such as the completion of detailed engineering for the civil work for both sites and the construction of the access road leading to the plant site in Baie-Comeau . Maintenance work on forest Road 202 leading to the mine site has also started last fall and will resume this spring. This purchase order, another very important milestone, brings the project one step closer to construction which will be able to begin once the final authorizations are obtained.”

Further procurement work is ongoing and other purchase orders to other suppliers, notably for wet screens, pumps, dryer, scrubber and crusher, will soon be issued according to a delivery schedule. A bidding process aimed at finalizing the selection of contractors for the civil work at both sites has also been launched and is now well advanced as bids were received and are currently being evaluated.

Finally, a new piloting campaign is underway, its main objective being the production of additional concentrate material to be used for customers’ testing, piloting work on the value-added products and supply to NanoXplore’s graphene production facility.

Mason Graphite is a Canadian mining and processing company focused on the development of its 100% owned Lac Guéret natural graphite deposit located in northeast Québec.