Graphite is emerging as an important industrial material in short supply, similar to the rare earth commodity. Years of underinvestment in new supplies as well as increasing demands have caused prices to rise sharply in the past few years.

A new global rush to search for qualified graphite supplies has just started. However, not all graphite is created equally, and there is significant quality variation which determines price and value ranging up to thousands of dollars per ton. When investing in graphite sheets companies, it’s essential to find the emerging producers with the right qualified graphite to supply the fast growing end markets, assets with proximity to infrastructure, and a management team in the game that can advance the mining project.

New discoveries in graphene, a derivative of graphite, may greatly expand expandable graphite demand in coming years above and beyond levels currently contemplated. Graphene is essentially the thinnest one-atom thick layer extracted from graphite. Graphene is believed to be one of the strongest, lightest, and most conductive materials and might have major technological applications.

Graphite, commonly known for its use in pencils, is quietly finding new applications that are poised to greatly expand its demand in the coming years. Currently, graphite gasket is primarily used in the steel industry where it is added to bricks in line furnaces to provide strength and resistance to heat, used to line ladles and crucibles, and added to steel to increase carbon content. Japan is the largest world importer of graphite, and will almost certainly boost imports in the coming years as they set to rebuild infrastructure in the wake of the devastating earthquakes they recently experienced. Graphite is also used extensively in the automobile industry in gaskets, brake linings and clutch materials. It has a myriad of other industrial uses, including electric motors, batteries, lubricants and pencils.