Evion lands inside Pentagon-backed network
Opens direct line to defence supply chain work
Company’s fluorspar and graphite assets in focus
Special Report: Evion Group has secured a direct line for its critical mineral projects to meet US Department of Defense supply chain priorities after being accepted as a member of the Cornerstone Consortium.
Cornerstone is the department’s public-private industrial base consortium managed by the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center and Army Contracting Command – Rock Island.
It is the only Government-managed Other Transaction Agreement consortium within the Department of Defense, distinguishing it from the industry-managed consortia that make up the majority of the OTA landscape.
The consortium spans 18 industrial base sectors and brings together traditional and non-traditional defence contractors, small businesses, private capital, academic institutions and federally funded research and development centres.
It was designed to accelerate the research, development, prototyping, demonstration, qualification and integration of manufacturing capabilities and capacities into the US industrial base and its supply chains.
Membership in the Cornerstone Consortium provides Evion Group (ASX:EVG) with direct visibility of, and eligibility to respond to, Cornerstone Initiative Requests – competitive Department of Defense solicitations issued to consortium members.
The company’s high-grade Carp fluorspar project in Lincoln County, Nevada, the EU-recognised Maniry graphite project in Madagascar and Panthera graphite processing plant inare directly relevant to Cornerstone’s mandate.
Being accepted in the consortium furthers its US government affairs strategy following the appointment of former Australian Ambassador to the United States Arthur Sinodinos as its strategic advisor and the articulation of its downstream critical materials strategy.
Industrial base work
Managing director David Round noted that Cornerstone is where the Department of Defense actually does its industrial base work.
“Being inside it means we see the requirements when they are issued and we are eligible to respond to them,” he said.
“For a company with a domestic American fluorspar asset and an operating non-China graphite processing business, that is exactly where we want to be.
“The United States imports every tonne of fluorspar it consumes. Graphite is not far behind. Washington has been explicit that it intends to fix that, and it has built the funding architecture to do it.
“Our job is to be positioned, credible and known when those requirements come out, and this is a deliberate step toward that.”
The US currently imports most graphite concentrates and all other downstream graphite products including expandable graphite and anode material for battery manufacturing.
With the US having a long history of importing graphite from Madagascar, EVG believes it can offer a compelling business case to US government agencies to be a preferred supplier of graphite concentrate to meet future needs.
The US also has no domestic primary production of fluorspar and imports all of its requirements.
This could be addressed by the company’s Carp project, which is a historically producing, high-grade carbonate-replacement system that delivered about 44,900t at an average grade of about 69% CaF2 between 1958 and 1971.
It has also independently verified surface rock chip sampling that returned up to 88.15% CaF2 across all four historically mined pit areas.
The company’s Panthera processing operation already manufactures expandable graphite to customer specification and ships it into the US and Europe.
EVG will now prepare its capability positioning across the Cornerstone Materials sector with support from its strategic advisor and US advisor network.
It will also advance the current field program at the Carp project towards drill testing and progress its downstream critical materials strategy.
This article was developed in collaboration with Evion Group, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.