“It is fair to say the planets have not yet aligned,” says Syrah Resources managing director Shaun Verner, when asked to reflect on his 6½ years in charge of the biggest and most vertically integrated graphite producer outside China.

The battery minerals boom is now mature enough for lithium miners to be reporting billion-dollar profits, but for graphite producers like Syrah, the glory days are yet to arrive, despite the fact battery makers are consuming graphite as rapidly as lithium.