Right now, 100% of the graphite used in lithium-ion batteries comes from China. I am not talking about graphite for traditional use. In that respect, there is already a market we can rely on, and prices are already higher than in the market for the graphite used to manufacture lithium-ion batteries. The latter is completely dominated by the Chinese. They clearly understood, over the past five years, that the demand was massive and they built an exceptional supply chain.
China is already engaging in somewhat unfair competition. Last year, the U.S. government announced that it would impose anti-dumping tariffs on graphite imports from China. This will be on top of the current 105% tariff, which will officially come into effect later this year.
Mechanisms have been put in place to allow us to offer a competitive price to our customers, mainly the Americans. We would very much like to see similar measures in Canada so that we could keep our product in the country, but there is indeed competition in this market. This market generates a large output volume, but profit margins are smaller. That is why we need more strategic markets where the output volume is smaller and the profit margins are larger.