Posted on 19 Nov 2025
Australian miner Syrah Resources has further extended a deadline with US electric vehicle maker Tesla to resolve an alleged breach of their offtake agreement.
Under a binding offtake deal signed in December 2021, Tesla agreed to buy 8,000 tonnes/year of natural graphite-based active anode materials (AAM) from the expansion of Syrah’s facility in Vidalia, Louisiana. Tesla also had the option to take additional volumes if Syrah expanded capacity beyond 10,000 t/y of AAM, Kallanish notes.
To conclude the deal, the pair were required to agree on final specifications by 31 December 2022 and to qualify the product by 31 May 2025. Earlier this year, Tesla alleged that Syrah had defaulted on the obligation of providing confirming AAM samples from the Louisiana plant, asking to cure the default by 16 September.
In September, Syrah rejected the default claims but said it would extend the deadline to 15 November. On Monday, the company reiterated that it “does not accept it is in default” but that the deadline has been further extended to 16 January 2026.
“The parties… are closely collaborating to cure the alleged default,” Syrah says in a statement. Tesla may terminate the offtake agreement if final qualification of Vidalia AAM is not achieved by 9 February 2026, Syrah adds.
The Vidalia plant began operations last year and is now operating at a capacity of 11,250 t/y AAM with ambitions to reach 45,000 t/y. It processes feedstock from Syrah’s Balama graphite mine in Mozambique, which is backed by a $150 million US federal loan finalised last year.
Also on Monday, Syrah said that the US International Development Finance Corporation has agreed to disburse $8.5m from the loan and to defer payments that were due on Monday to 15 May 2026. The financing is being used as working and sustaining capital at Balama to support the expansion of its tailings storage facility, and to carry out feasibility studies to develop Balama’s vanadium resource.
Source:Kallanish
