Graphite One’s Stock Bleeds 47% Even as Engineering Deal and Customer Tests Advance

The contrast could hardly be starker. Graphite One has secured over $2 billion in financing commitments from the EXIM Bank and the U.S. Defense Department, bagged a major engineering contract for its planned Ohio processing plant, and dispatched anode samples to half a dozen potential buyers. Yet the stock keeps sinking. At Friday’s close of €0.62, the shares have lost nearly 47% since the start of the year and sit roughly 47% below the 52-week high touched in January 2026.

The company’s strategy rests on America’s largest known graphite deposit, the Graphite Creek site in Alaska. That project was added to the FAST-41 permitting portal, a federal fast-track program for critical infrastructure, and the environmental review is due for completion by September 29, 2026. Raw graphite from Alaska is meant to travel to Conneaut, Ohio, where Graphite One plans to produce active anode material for lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles, energy storage, and defense applications.

That Ohio plant just cleared a key hurdle. Graphite One has hired a leading global engineering firm to design and integrate the equipment, a move CEO Anthony Huston called “a significant execution milestone.” The engineering team will handle interface planning, process integration, and production-line optimization — shifting the project from planning into implementation. Phase one is slated to come online at an initial annual capacity of 10,000 tonnes by the fourth quarter of 2027 (or end of 2027 according to other disclosures). A second phase, targeting 25,000 tonnes a year, is planned for the third quarter of 2028.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Graphite One?

None of that can happen without the final financing in place, however. The company already has commitments exceeding $2 billion from the EXIM Bank and the U.S. Defense Department, and a recent Pentagon report recommended targeted production and investment tax credits to build out domestic battery manufacturing — a signal that would directly benefit Graphite One. But the Ohio project still depends on securing the remaining funding, and until that is locked, the timeline remains provisional.

Meanwhile, the operational path to revenue is advancing. Graphite One has shipped anode material samples to six potential customers — three electric-vehicle makers and three battery manufacturers. These qualification tests are mandatory before binding offtake agreements can be signed. Success would secure the long-term demand needed to underwrite the massive capital outlay in Ohio.

The stock chart, however, shows little faith. The shares trade well below their 50-day moving average of €0.71, a level that would need to be reclaimed to signal any buying momentum. The relative strength index stands at 33.5, a reading that suggests oversold conditions and could hint at a near-term bounce. But the real catalysts are binary: either the customers’ tests pass and financing falls into place, or the clock on Graphite One’s grand supply-chain vision keeps ticking without a deal.