Our next presenter is Eric Desaulniers, CEO of Nouveau Monde Graphite. I must point out that BMO is restricted on Nouveau Monde, so to the extent there's time for questions, I can take those from the audience, but can't direct them myself. Eric?
Thank you very much, Greg. Thanks, everyone, for being here. Nouveau Monde Graphite, we started like already 14 years ago, all the way from grassroots exploration to today, like a construction-ready project that we'll talk about. What we do at Nouveau Monde Graphite is building from the mine all the way to the finished product, delivering an engineered material for cell maker, mainly in North America, also in Europe. Why we do that? I have a lot of questions on natural graphite usage and battery. I confirm every chemistry uses graphite. ESS uses graphite, energy storage solution. EV uses graphite. LFP uses graphite. NMC and CA, they all use graphite on the anode. It's less than 10% of the cost per kilowatt-hour, so it's not that price-sensitive for the cell maker.
It is about 30% of the carbon footprint of the battery. It is a big, significant contributor to the carbon intensity. For NMG, doing carbon-neutral product is a value for our customer, for sure. Three main projects to build the full vertical. The first mine that we are currently working on, the Matawinie Mine, will produce 100,000 tons per annum of flake concentrate. It is fully permitted. We started construction activities. It is two hours north of Montreal. All the production of the Matawinie Mine will be going to Bécancourt. Most of it will be processed for being transformed in anode material. 90% of the revenue will be coming from anode material production, and the 10% remaining will sell a little bit of flake as concentrate in other traditional markets.
Last year, we purchased the other project in North America that we considered very advanced to design what is today, on paper, the largest project for graphite in the world at 500,000 tons per annum. That is the phase three. That is the strategy of NMG. Currently, we are operating since 2018 a phase one plant that can do up to 2,000 tons per annum capacity, but we're not producing to make a profit there. It's really to deliver at-scale samples to our customer to qualify and really understand the different processes to feed in the phase two study that we did. We did three years ago a feasibility study that we're currently updating and will publish in the next few weeks before the end of Q1 an updated feasibility study on the phase two.
Both Matawinie Mine and Bécancourt Battery Material Plant at phase two should be executed in the next three years to deliver in 2028 the first tons to our customer. Hopefully, in 2028, phase three will be ready to build. That is really the idea there of the three phases that are quite important for our customer and investor. ESG is very important for NMG. Benchmark Minerals is making an assessment of all graphite producers in the world. We are by a margin the industry leader. Carbon-neutral production thanks mainly to hydroelectricity, all-electric mine with Caterpillar, and a lot of initiatives like that make our product very, very low carbon footprint and a lot of other initiatives on ESG that we can talk about. It matters to our stakeholders.
We were able, thanks to this strategy, to build a very strong partnership with our stakeholders. Recently, we have Investissement Québec became our largest shareholder prior to Christmas, supporting us since over seven years now. Canada Growth Fund, first investment in mining was made in NMG prior to Christmas, alongside market participants Panasonic, GM, Mitsui, and Pallinghurst Private Equity based in London that are supporting us since a long time now, six years. We have over $100 million in the bank, so fully financed to bring this project to FID decision and making the project financing per se of the phase two. The big thing, very important in this business, you need to have customers who commit to production long term and commit to the technology they're using. We have a seven-year take- or- pay agreement with Panasonic Energy for 18,000 tons per annum.
The same with GM, 18,000 tons per annum. GM is working with different cell makers that we're qualifying with Panasonic and the cell makers that are working with GM. That is fundamental to the project. They made a first investment last year. We're using that money to deliver a FID-ready project. In the next few weeks, when we give the updated feasibility study to the different stakeholders, we'll talk about the tranche two alongside other stakeholders to close this project financing. Why they purchased from us? It's mainly for their operating plants in the US and plants that are being commissioned in the near future. Panasonic Energy is in business with Tesla since a long time in Nevada, as we know, and they're building a $4 billion plant in Kansas now, in DeSoto, Kansas, and that's where we are scheduled to send our production.
GM is working with LGES for two plants in the US, and they have a third one with Samsung SDI. This is really for the North American market that we're currently developing our project. You know, as recent as a month ago, Panasonic confirmed that the Nouveau Monde objective that they have is to cut the supply from China for their U.S. operation. This is like a primary objective of our customers to help the localization of supply. That is why they're making the investment and they allocate resource developing projects like us. For sure, China restriction to export is a big issue. When you invest billions of dollars in a cell factory, a lot of money on the cathode side, you need to have an anode.
It is not that price-sensitive, but it becomes a big hurdle if you do not have any anode to make a battery. That is why it is a primary opportunity for Panasonic with NMG to develop this local supply chain. Also, one thing very recent for the market, we have a lot of backlash on EV and stuff like that, but in reality, last year, it was record sales in the U.S. of 1.3 million EV. In the world, like China is going EV big time. I was there in December. It is awesome. You see a lot of different brands going all EV. Seventeen million EV sold in the world. We are not talking about ESS here, but I should add that to the presentation. ESS, they are basically installing about 1 gigawatt-hour per day these days since two years.
It's 1,000 tons of graphite per day, give or take, for installing ESS. ESS is becoming as important as EV in the future growth. Also, we cannot publish a lot of stuff from McKinsey, but it was public two weeks ago, so I'd like to talk about it. What is the most risky geopolitically commodity that goes in the battery? Graphite, by a margin, was ranked first. Like it's 100% everywhere. Like concentration geographic for mining in China, concentration for refining all in China, supply and demand imbalance. If you look like hurdle for exportation, you look is it easy to diversify or not? All the criteria, graphite, by a margin, is the most risky commodity out there. This is not only about pricing, because if you look pricing, it's a bit disappointing. In the last four years, it's very stable.
Even gold is moving more than graphite. It should be volatile somehow. When I started this business, if you remember, 2012, it was three, four times the price. What is happening in China? There is an oversupply in China, but the reality is outside of China, there is no significant production of anode graphite, so we need to do something about it. That is the challenge we all have, to have structure of project financing that works outside China, considering that graphite in North America is basically priceless somehow because you need this graphite to deliver the EV transition.
What we do about it, you know, we invested a few hundred million dollars already in having a phase one operation from A to Z, from crushing the rock, having the flotation circuit, making a few hundred to a few thousand tons of graphite concentrate and delivering also the full shaping, purification, coating, and having dozens of tons delivered to customer to qualify this product. More importantly, really understand the processes behind building a phase two facility. The mine is ready to go. Like we like to say now, concrete ready. We started construction activities a while ago. Access road is made, environmental ditches, and all the preparatory work is done. We need to erect the concentrator once we have project financing. That is two hours north of Montreal. We go in Bécancourt between Montreal and Quebec City.
That's where GM is building a factory, where Nemaska is building their factory too. We're neighboring them. SK On with EcoPro is there too. We have bought the land there in 2019. In the middle of the park, we have all infrastructure in place. We did a bit of a road there, clearing grub. Everything is ready to go once we proceed with the project financing to start construction, hopefully rather sooner than later. That's a big boom. That's a big advantage. In Quebec, there was no major project since a long time. Now, at the same time, we had many different projects starting. Capacity was built, and now we can work with our partners to tap in this capacity in construction to make sure we have lesson learned and we are developing this project on time and on budget.
This is the next step for us. It's really delivering this feasibility study to all the different stakeholders that are working with us that we announced already to close this project financing, hopefully with the best structure in terms of debt to equity ratio. Everyone is around the table. Everybody has sent a letter of interest. It's now time to close this in the next, I would say, two quarters following the delivery of the feasibility study to be in production as promised to our customer in 2028. This is it. Any question in the audience? Because I'm not allowed to talk to Greg.
Thank you, Eric. Please submit any questions through the app or raise hands, and we're happy to pass the mic around.
Consumers have now sort of spoken in terms of the mix of natural and synthetic. Is that correct? They want a mix. They don't want one or the other. Is that a correct conclusion?
Yeah. I mean, artificial graphite and natural graphite are competing in many different applications in the world. Lithium-ion battery is one where customers need to choose the blend they want. We have customers who want 100% natural. We have customers who are taking, well, they're not customers, but they're taking 100% artificial. And there's everything in between. You need to know your customer. One thing I can say is they don't want to change this blend. If it's 70-30, if it's 50-50, they keep this mix, and that's their own recipe. They mix it with silicon. They do their own stuff. You need to know your customer.
If your customers are willing to do a seven-year take- or- pay commitment on a production like ours, you need to trust they know their technology and they don't do those offtakes for no reason. Not all customers are born equal, I would say. A startup project like us needs to work with a tier one partner like GM and Panasonic for bankability reasons. That is something very fortunate for NMG to have those partners who know what they want and they're committing to their strategy for a long period of time for us to build a generational project. You build a 26-year mine life project, you need to have customers who commit more than a quarter. That is a very good question that we're having a lot. Yeah.
Eric, a question came in through the app. Can you comment on the progress and engagement with Indigenous communities within your project areas? Absolutely. Have you completed any IBAs or contracts?
Yes, yes, yes. Very good. The Atikamekw First Nation, we are collaborating with them since like the first time I've been there at April 3rd, 2013. It has been a long negotiation. It is not a negotiation. You need to show up. You need to work with them. You need to understand what they want, what they need, and where they come from. We were fortunate to sign this IBA just prior to Christmas. It is something that we were very glad to do just prior to enabling all the investment from Canada Growth Fund and our government, Investissement Québec. All stakeholders are very happy that we have this onboarding of the Atikamekw First Nation that are very important partners for us.
Excellent. Thank you for joining us.
Good. Thank you very much.