In our latest episode, I spoke with Chip Dunn, Founder of Monomyth Group and Chairman of M2 Graphite (formerly Anovion). M2 Graphite was formed in early 2022 from a merger of Amsted Industries' West Virginia Acheson furnace assets and Pyrotek's Niagara Falls battery technology, and has invested over US$100M to date. It has a fully permitted site in Georgia, transformers already being delivered, technical qualification with several top-10 battery manufacturers, and a US$400M EXIM LOI.
We cover:
- The rebrand from Anovion to M2 Graphite and the Monomyth group structure
- The Nanograf silicon anode acquisition, why it sits in a separate entity, and the military SiOx strategy
- The AD/CVD outcome and the appeal now at the Court of International Trade. If successful, the case is remanded to an ITC whose make-up has changed significantly since the original 2-1 vote, with the only remaining commissioner from that panel being the one who sided with the petitioners
- Why Chip sees battery makers as the ones who lose out. Without conditional offtake contracts, domestic producers like M2 can't finance and break ground, and a first facility takes 2+ years to build. Every deferral in favour of cheap imports from China, Morocco or Indonesia pushes out the date domestic supply actually exists
- Where M2 sits on qualification: in conversations with virtually every major battery maker building capacity in the US, technical qualification achieved with several of the top 10, and the final commissioning-stage qualification still to clear before a contract can be signed
- Why Chip believes M2's cost structure can be at or below China's at scale
- The US$400M EXIM LOI, why existing DC programmes aren't built for early-stage producers, and why Project Vault is the sleeper
- Why Morocco and Indonesia circumvention won't play for long
- Why the US should stop thinking only about tariffs and start looking at export controls of its own, given China has already shown it will restrict graphite when it suits
- Military demand alone is too modest to support an industry, but ESS and data centres can make the national security case
- What's next for M2
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