Montreal, Feb 26 — In preparation for its commercial Phase 2, Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. (“NMG” or the “Company”) (NYSE: NMG, TSX: NOU) has acquired the brownfield site and industrial facilities adjacent to its greenfield site in Bécancour, Québec. The purchase enables the Company to deploy the first stage of its refining operations to fulfill Panasonic Energy’s 13,000-tpa active anode material offtake and reinforces NMG’s presence in Bécancour, at the heart of the Canadian battery hub and two hours from the Matawinie Mine.
Eric Desaulniers, Founder, President, and CEO of NMG, stated: “For NMG, delivering an optimized and competitive solution to our partner Panasonic Energy with the utmost efficiency is a strategic priority. By accelerating our development pathway and maintaining the highest standards of performance, cost discipline, and ESG excellence, we are helping anchor a resilient and sustainable integrated battery value chain in North America. This collaboration reinforces our shared ambition to build a local, carbon-neutral, and future‑proof supply chain that will strengthen industrial sovereignty, support the energy transition, and ensure long‑term value for our partners, our communities, and the North American market.”
The 143,000-m2 brownfield site includes a 22,000-m2 facility, large storing and logistics area, and connections to key industrial infrastructure. It is contiguous to NMG’s 200,000-m2 greenfield site, providing an ideal setting for a two-stage development plan for the Company’s Phase-2 Bécancour Battery Material Plants. Bécancour offers direct access to highways, railway and port for easy logistics, robust industrial infrastructure, nearby labour pool, along with potential synergies within the industrial park with battery material and chemical producers.
NMG will leverage this brownfield facility to build a first production capacity of active anode material dedicated to Panasonic Energy. Offering a full integration from ore to battery materials, graphite concentrate from the Company’s Phase-2 Matawinie Mine will be refined at this Bécancour Battery Material Plant into 13,000 tonnes per annum (“tpa”) of active anode material as per Panasonic Energy’s technical and quality specifications. The production will support battery manufacturing at Panasonic Energy’s Nevada and Kansas facilities in line with Panasonic Energy’s global capacity expansion.
Leveraging the technology and engineering work carried out thus far, NMG will work to retrofit its plan to the building and develop a class-3 estimate for this brownfield development in H1-2026. The industrial building and associated infrastructure should enable the Company to lower infrastructure costs, optimize CAPEX per tonne for this first stage development, and streamline permitting, engineering and construction timelines to align the commissioning period with that of the Matawinie Mine. The Company will work with its strategic shareholders and targeted financial partners toward a Bécancour final investment decision (“FID”) in H2-2026.