Zenyatta Ventures Ltd has reported the positive economic results of a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) on its hydrothermal graphite project located in northern Ontario, Canada. The report concluded that the PEA is positive and the project should be advanced to the pre-feasibility stage. The company plans for the 3000 tonne per day open-pit mine and process plant to produce 30,000 tonnes of high purity (>99.9% Cg) graphite annually over 22 years. ‘The PEA indicates that the Albany graphite project has excellent potential to be a low-cost source of high purity graphite without the use of dangerous and environmentally harmful hydrofluoric acid (as in China) or costly thermal upgrading (as in synthetic graphite derived from petroleum coke),’ the company said in a press release. ‘The company is exceptionally pleased with the strong PEA results presented by RPA and will now proceed to a pre-feasibility stage where further project definition and optimization is expected,’ added Aubrey Eveleigh, president and CEO of Zenyatta. ‘This is a very important milestone for Zenyatta that started with the discovery of a rare graphite deposit in 2011 and has now gained global recognition for its unique purity and crystallinity.’ According to Zenyatta, independent testing has also indicated that the performance of Albany graphite makes it suitable for use in powder metallurgy (PM) applications and hydrogen fuel cells while preliminary testing has indicated that is within the range of anode materials that are presently used for lithium-ion batteries. At this time Zenyatta anticipates having a targeted market application segmentation which includes 25–30% in batteries, 20–25% for fuel cell products, 25–30% for high purity graphite in PM and 15–30% from other applications. Zenyatta;www.zenyatta.ca