Renascor. Tim, do you want to just mix it around and get Renascor up while we're waiting for that to load? Would that be helpful for everyone? Give me a hands up for a yes, and a hands down for a no. Yep, okay. Let's do that. Mr. Gorilla, pop off the stage. We've seen you. Off you go. I, I just think that's easier. Wonderful, Charles. Great job. All right, now Renascor was out there. They were waiting. They're in the wings. David Christensen, come and join me, sir. You're an old hand at this. So these guys are known for their great Graphite Project and growing relevance in the battery minerals conversation on very short notice. Give them a round, warm round of applause, everyone, please.
Thanks, Chrissy. So Renascor Resources, we're now in the critical minerals space after we discovered what's grown into one of the world's largest graphite deposits in our home state of South Australia. Our plan at Renascor is to produce not just a mined graphite product, but to move one step further downstream and refine it into a purified spherical form to deliver into the lithium-ion battery market. As a graphite mine, we have the chance to become among the lowest cost producers globally. But by moving one step further, we have the opportunity to be the lowest cost producer of purified spherical graphite outside of China. A few words on the market. Graphite has become a battery mineral. The single largest use case for graphite is in lithium-ion battery anodes.
Just a few words on the market and why we follow it. We're at the beginning of a really paradigm-shifting trend that's being driven by, amongst other things, increased efficiency in the production of lithium-ion batteries, and this is the kind of thing that gives rise to growth that outlasts political cycles and commodity cycles. Another difference we're seeing in the graphite market from what we're looking at in lithium-ion batteries is the growth of energy storage as an increasing application for lithium-ion batteries, and therefore graphite anode. Previously, we looked most closely at the use of lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles, and that was a matter of economic security for the automobile industry.
But increasingly, energy storage is increasing its percentage use of lithium-ion batteries, and that's because of its relevance for grid security. So now it's a matter of energy security. For all of this material, if we look in particular at the production of graphite and anode, China dominates this space. In fact, not only do they dominate it, they have a near monopoly on the production of purified spherical graphite and anode. If the Chinese were to stop exporting purified spherical graphite and anode material, the West would not be able to build lithium-ion batteries. Would they do that? Well, for the last three years running now, China has threatened to do that.
Instead of realizing on that threat, they've dumped cheap synthetic material on the market, depressing the price, but increasing the reliance on the Chinese. The government that's doing the most to stop this is the United States, who's adopting both a carrot and a stick approach. The stick is probably most pronounced with tariffs. Just last week, the United States announced a final anti-dumping and countervailing duty of 160% on Chinese anode material. So any Chinese anode material that's delivered into the United States now faces a 160% tariff. The other thing that the U.S. government is doing is promoting domestic production, not necessarily of minerals, but downstream production. We've seen this happen already with rare earths and how quickly that can change the market.
The United States is looking in particular at doing this for other minerals, battery minerals, minerals like graphite. In Australia, we don't have the end market here, but what we do have is a number of very good projects on the critical mineral side, and the Australian government is focusing its attention on projects that can meet its allied supplied needs. We've been a major beneficiary of support from the Australian government. We have a AUD 185 million conditional loan facility from the Australian government. We also recently got a AUD 5 million grant to build a demonstration facility from the Australian government. Now, while all these geopolitical maneuverings play out, what's the market doing? What's happening?
So our target customer are anode makers, and about six companies account for nearly all of the anode material that's delivered into the West. And despite price pressure, with these companies struggling to stay afloat, they're expanding, and they're expanding in particular to service Western battery markets. So they're thinking ahead. Groups like POSCO are expanding in South Korea, Mitsubishi Chemical in Japan. Even the Chinese are moving offshore. Right now, BTR, the Chinese anode company, the largest anode company in the world, is expanding into Indonesia. They're now the single largest seller of anode material into the U.S. market. And the common denominator from all of these expansion operations is needing non-Chinese graphite, the kind that we believe we can produce at a competitive advantage from Renascor. All right, our project.
So we're producing a vertically integrated project. What that means is we're combining a traditional mining operation with the first stage of processing to produce a purified spherical graphite product that lithium-ion battery anode makers will use. The mining project leverages off of one of the largest graphite ore bodies in the world, our Siviour deposit in South Australia, the second-largest proven reserve of graphite in the world, the largest reserve of graphite outside of Africa. But more importantly than being large, it's efficient. It has among the lowest operating costs, among the lowest capital intensity of any graphite development, not just in Australia, but the world. We're also development-ready. We've completed all major technical work. We have all our major approvals, both for the upstream and the downstream, in place. We purchased the land.
We have a native title agreement. We also have a very strong cash position, AUD 97 million at the end of the last quarter. But we offer more than just being a mining project by moving downstream. This allows us to become an integrated battery materials provider. Why is this important? Well, for one thing, it gives us market access. It gives us good bankable companies, anode companies, the kind that can underwrite our production for many years. It also allows us to leverage on something that the Australian industry does quite well, which is the processing sector, the engineering sector, and we've utilized that to put together a downstream purification technology that we believe is more efficient. It also gives more value. We're producing a higher value-added product. This gives more value to Renascor. It gives more value to Renascor shareholders.
Importantly, as a mining project, we can be competitive, but by moving one step further downstream, we become more competitive. Where does that competitive advantage lie? Primarily in the graphite deposit itself. The single largest cost component in producing the Purified Spherical Graphite is the feedstock. We have a low-cost source from our Siviour deposit. We won't be taking it to another jurisdiction and upgrading it and then sending it on to our customer. We'll be doing it here in Australia on the way to port. We're in a low sovereign risk jurisdiction. We're in a jurisdiction that has both the industrial capacity and the technical capacity to do the downstream processing. We are building a demonstration facility to demonstrate we can do this, and we can do it efficiently.
We got a AUD 5 million grant from the Australian government. This is supported by POSCO in South Korea, Hanwa in Japan. We're well into building this. We started it about the midpoint of last year. We expect to get to construction mechanical completion as early as the end of this month, and that'll put us into full commissioning and operation as we move into the second quarter. And the purpose of all of this isn't just to produce product, it's to demonstrate we can do it, and we can do it efficiently. To demonstrate we have an advantage not just in producing graphite at the mine site, but we can utilize that on a larger scale basis to produce Purified Spherical Graphite and then move into the anode market.
This dovetails into our offtake strategy, where we're aligning with leading providers of anode material to Western markets. We have non-binding agreements in place with groups like POSCO in South Korea, Mitsubishi Chemical, and Hanwa in Japan. Over the last 2.5 years or so, these groups have been under real price pressure from inexpensive Chinese material, but there are a lot of signs that that's changing now. Just the expansion of all these groups, notwithstanding the low price, and probably the single largest factor to date that indicates it's changing is POSCO recently announced a large-scale supply agreement into the United States to a U.S. OEM. Again, the common denominator from all these projects is they need projects that can produce not just graphite, but purified spherical graphite outside of China.
We're one of the few groups who can do this and can do it very quickly. I'm nearing the end of time. What's next for us is as we move forward over 2026, we expect to be very busy. In addition to doing our work on our Graphite Project, we maintain an active exploration portfolio. Anyone who wants to hear more, I invite you to stop by our booth. But our focus is really on unlocking the value of this Graphite Project, and in particular, on successfully validating our process through that PSG demonstration facility in Adelaide. And that in parallel, we'll be working on finalizing offtake, moving to financing, and getting to a final investment decision. And the backdrop to all of this is what's happening in the graphite market.
We've seen in other markets that policy changes can change things relatively quickly. There's a real possibility that that can happen in the graphite market, and we want to be ready for it. Thanks very much. Again, anybody who wants to hear more, please stop by my booth. I'd be happy to talk to you. Thanks very much.