Graphite One Stock Rebound Masks Diverging Fortunes in Ohio and Alaska Permitting

Ohio air permit accepted for Conneaut anode plant marks key progress, while Alaska environmental review pushes mine permitting to 2027. Shares rally from oversold territory.

Graphite One shares closed out the week with a sharp 6.93% rally to €0.5090 on Friday, snapping a brutal month-long slide that had wiped more than a quarter from the stock. The bounce followed news that the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency had accepted the company’s air permit application for its planned Conneaut anode plant as tentatively complete, triggering the technical review phase. Yet the same week brought a setback 3,000 miles away: the US Army Corps of Engineers ordered a full environmental impact statement for the Graphite Creek project in Alaska, pushing the federal permitting timeline a full year later than originally anticipated.

The Ohio breakthrough marks a concrete step forward for the synthetic anode material (AAM) facility that Graphite One intends to build on a site secured through a license agreement with CN Rail in May 2026. The Conneaut plant is designed to produce 10,000 tonnes of synthetic AAM per year initially, with expansion capacity to 25,000 tonnes, and the company targets first production by the fourth quarter of 2027. “This is a milestone for Graphite One,” said operations chief Mike Schaffner of the Ohio EPA’s move to declare the application complete and begin substantive technical evaluation. The air permit is a prerequisite for any construction start.

Alaska’s trajectory, however, has lengthened. The Army Corps’ decision that the Graphite Creek mining project requires a full environmental impact study rather than a simpler environmental assessment redrew the regulatory roadmap. Under the federal FAST-41 permitting schedule, the target date for completion now stands at September 2027, compared with the earlier September 2026 goal. Management has played down the delay, noting that it had anticipated the more rigorous review and remains confident of commissioning the mine by 2029. The deposit, which holds millions of tonnes of natural graphite, is intended to feed the same domestic battery supply chain that the Ohio plant will serve.

Community relations work on the Seward Peninsula is proceeding in parallel. A previously scheduled meeting with local tribes was postponed after it clashed with the traditional harvest season. Graphite One now plans to meet with representatives from Brevig Mission, Teller and Mary’s Igloo on July 28, continuing a dialogue that the company says is essential given the sensitivity of the region to mining.

The market’s reaction to the week’s developments has been volatile. Before the Friday surge, the stock had closed at €0.4860 after a modest 2.10% gain on the day of the Ohio announcement. That still left the shares 28.42% lower over the preceding 30 days and nearly 60% down year-to-date. Technical indicators had flagged deeply oversold conditions, with the 14-day relative strength index sinking to 26.4 – territory that often precedes a rebound. Annualized 30-day volatility, at 58.53%, underscored the uncertainty investors attach to the twin permitting processes.

The dual-track strategy – synthetic material from Ohio in the near term and natural graphite from Alaska later in the decade – is designed to carve out an independent US supply chain for battery materials, but each leg carries its own regulatory risks. Ohio’s air permit review now enters a phase that could take months, and no construction can begin until it is resolved. Alaska’s full environmental impact statement adds years of study, public comment and potential legal challenges.

For now, the stock’s bounce reflects a technical snap-back after weeks of selling, rather than a fundamental reassessment of the projects’ timelines. The gap to the 52-week high of €1.59, set on January 28, 2026, remains more than 68%, a reminder of how far sentiment has cooled. With Ohio moving forward technically and Alaska trapped in a longer federal process, the divergence between the two fronts is likely to keep the shares swinging in the weeks ahead.