Policy Wins, Market Losses: Graphite One Slumps 57% Ahead of Shareholder Vote on Pay

Government endorsements and $5B project plans contrast with a 57% stock drop and a key tariff ruling against domestic anode makers.

The story of Graphite One this year reads like a tale of two realities. In Washington, the company has racked up endorsements from the Pentagon, a spot on a fast-track permitting list, and non-binding financing letters worth $2 billion. On the New York Stock Exchange (via its OTC listing), the stock has been hammered: trading at €0.68 a share, it sits more than 57% below the January high of €1.59, with a year-to-date slide of over 42%.

That disconnect sets the stage for an unusually tense annual shareholder meeting on June 26, 2026. On the agenda: approval of stock-based compensation for management. With roughly 209 million common shares outstanding, plus another 4.4 million restricted stock units, 4.9 million performance share units and 10.7 million options, the dilution potential is significant. Investors who have watched their holdings shrink by nearly half are unlikely to treat the vote as a rubber stamp.

A key reason for the market’s skepticism surfaced in March, when the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that Chinese graphite anode imports do not materially injure or threaten the American industry. That decision killed proposed tariffs of up to 220%, which had been a central pillar of the protectionist thesis that underpinned Graphite One’s investment case. The original anti-dumping complaint, filed in December 2024 by a group of U.S. anode makers, now appears to have run into the sand.

Adding to the headwinds, the Biden administration extended tariff exemptions on imported battery production equipment through at least November 2026 – a tacit admission that domestic manufacturers still depend on foreign technology.

The company has made tangible progress on the ground. On May 19, it secured a site in Conneaut, Ohio, for its planned active anode material plant, after scrapping a previous location in Warren due to inadequate power infrastructure. The integrated supply chain would start at the Graphite Creek deposit in Alaska – described by the U.S. Geological Survey as the country’s largest graphite resource – and run to processing in Ohio. The total price tag: roughly $5 billion, split between $3.9 billion for the Ohio facility and $1.1 billion for the Alaskan mine.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank has issued letters of intent for $670 million (Alaska) and $1.4 billion (Ohio), both announced in December 2025. Crucially, those letters are non-binding. Binding offtake agreements with customers, the ultimate signal of commercial traction, have yet to materialize.

A Pentagon report published on June 4 provided fresh political tailwinds. Co-authored with the Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries, the report warns that Asian suppliers control 92% of the global battery manufacturing equipment market – a vulnerability that extends from EVs to military vehicles, drones and AI data centers. To counter that, the Pentagon recommends production and investment tax credits, a joint co-investment fund, and licensing frameworks for technology from partner countries. It estimates up to 5,000 new U.S. jobs and a global battery equipment market that could reach $48 billion by 2032.

Graphite One’s chief executive, Anthony Huston, has framed the Alaska-Ohio model as the blueprint for a resilient domestic supply chain. The Graphite Creek project is enrolled in the FAST-41 permitting program, which aims to streamline federal review, and the Army Corps of Engineers is currently evaluating the application, with a decision deadline of September 29, 2026. Two other U.S. graphite projects – in Alabama and New York – received FAST-41 designation in March, turning the race for the first fully domestic graphite supply chain into a multi-player contest.

For now, the stock is trading just below its 50-day moving average of €0.72, with a relative strength index of 42, suggesting neither overbought nor oversold conditions. The next catalyst will be the shareholder vote. But the real proof for Graphite One will come later: binding customer contracts and the autumn permitting verdict. Until then, political support alone has not been enough to arrest the slide.