Tanzania Graphite Flotation Circuit Guide (2026)

A greenfield graphite flotation circuit in Tanzania is a flake-preserving processing line: crushing, gentle milling, rougher and multi-stage cleaner flotation, polishing, dewatering, drying, then screening and bagging by flake grade. The buyers are the operators behind Mahenge, Epanko, Chilalo, and Lindi Jumbo, and the spend follows a defined EPC procurement window.

Why graphite flotation is a live procurement line in Tanzania

Tanzania holds roughly 17 million tonnes of graphite reserves, ranking it among the world’s top six on the TanzaniaInvest graphite figures. What makes it a flotation-equipment market rather than a reserve statistic is the sequence of projects that have moved from feasibility into build. The headline event is Mahenge.

Black Rock Mining officially launched the Mahenge Graphite Project on 9 October 2025, with Black Rock holding 84% and the Government of Tanzania a 16% free-carried interest through Faru Graphite Corporation. The project is sized at up to 340,000 tonnes of graphite concentrate a year over a 24-year mine life, built across four modules. POSCO is contracted to take all graphite fines, with its affiliate POSCO Future M building a spherical purified graphite plant in Korea to feed a 70,000-tonne-a-year anode facility at Sejong. Faru Graphite financed the build through CRDB Bank, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, and the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa.

That is a fully funded, offtake-backed, multi-module concentrator build. Each module is a flotation circuit. For a process-equipment supplier the question is not whether the spend exists, but which package and which EPC holds the flowsheet. This guide sits under our Tanzania mining equipment suppliers guide and the country-wide Tanzania industrial and procurement guide, which carry the FX, TANePS, and mega-project context. Here the focus is narrow: the circuit itself and how to sell one into a Tanzanian graphite project.

What a graphite flotation circuit actually contains

Graphite is naturally hydrophobic, so flotation is the core separation step. But the economics of a flake-graphite plant turn on one thing the textbook flowsheet understates: flake preservation. Coarse flake sells for far more than fine powder, so every unit operation is built to lift carbon grade without breaking the flake. A greenfield circuit breaks into these packages.

Crushing and milling. Primary jaw crushing, then a gentle grind. The recurring design choice is rod mills or high-pressure grinding rolls rather than aggressive ball milling: as the 911 Metallurgist graphite beneficiation reference sets out, the goal is to liberate graphite from gangue while protecting flake size. Over-grinding destroys the premium.

Rougher and scavenger flotation. The rougher recovers the bulk of the graphite fast into a low-grade concentrate. Kerosene-class collectors and a frother do the work, with gangue depressants added where silicates or micas coat the graphite. Epanko is a useful public reference: the Epanko Graphite Project flowsheet runs rougher, scavenger, primary cleaner, and secondary cleaner stages at a nameplate throughput of 480,000 tonnes a year of ore.

Multi-stage cleaning with inter-stage regrind. The rougher concentrate is cleaned several times to push carbon grade toward the 94 to 96% range battery and refractory buyers want. Between stages, attrition or stirred-mill regrinding liberates locked impurities. Done right it abrades surface gangue without cutting the flake; done wrong it turns jumbo flake into fines and erases the premium.

Polishing and attrition. A dedicated polishing step lifts the final concentrate to spec, with reagent regime and cell residence time tuned to the Tanzanian orebody. This is where flake projects differentiate themselves.

Dewatering and drying. Thickeners, filter presses or vacuum filters, then drying, carrying the flake into screening intact.

Screening, classification, and bagging by flake grade. The concentrate is screened into fractions, jumbo, large, medium, small, and fine, then bagged. This is commercially decisive: the fraction split, not just total tonnage, sets revenue. Tanzanian flake projects have drawn buyer interest precisely because a high share of product sits above 150 microns.

Two comparators frame the scale. Walkabout Resources shipped first concentrate from its Lindi Jumbo mine in June 2024, a 40,000-tonne-a-year flake operation built for a reported USD 27.8 million capital cost, per the NS Energy report, and Evolution Energy Minerals’ Chilalo project near Nachingwea has reported flotation test concentrates averaging 95.9% total carbon. Those are the grade and tonnage envelopes a new circuit gets specified against.

Who issues the RFQs

The buyer set is small, named, and mostly ASX-listed, so procurement intentions are unusually visible in public filings.

Black Rock Mining / Faru Graphite is the largest near-term buyer. With Mahenge launched and modular construction starting, the early packages are crushing, the first-module flotation train, and materials handling, awarded by the contractor against Black Rock’s process spec.

Evolution Energy Minerals is advancing Chilalo toward a final investment decision with early site works underway. That is the classic window to get a flotation and reagent package onto the bidder list: after the flowsheet is locked, before the EPC tenders the mechanical scope.

EcoGraf / Kibaran Resources at Epanko has a bankable feasibility study and a defined four-stage circuit, with staged expansion from an initial roughly 73,000 tonnes a year. Walkabout Resources at Lindi Jumbo is in production, a candidate for debottlenecking rather than a greenfield build.

Government-linked involvement runs through the state miner STAMICO and the Mining Commission, both flagged in the US trade.gov Tanzania mining commercial guide, which states the sector “depends on imported machinery and supplies.” Flotation cells, reagents, and the full processing train fall squarely in that imported category.

How to sell a flotation circuit through the EPC, not around it

A flotation cell maker or reagent house rarely sells a full circuit direct to the mine. The flowsheet is owned by a process-engineering or EPC house, and the package gets awarded through that contractor’s vendor list. On African graphite and base-metals plants the recurring names are Lycopodium, DRA Global, and Sedgman, alongside the owner’s in-house project team.

The play is straightforward. Identify which EPC or EPCM holds the flowsheet, then position your flotation cells, regrind mills, thickeners, or reagent system into that contractor’s approved-vendor list well before the mechanical package goes to tender. Chinese EPC-plus-financing packages compete hard on integrated plants, so non-Chinese suppliers usually win on engineering fit, recovery rate, flake-preservation performance, and after-sales depth, bid through the EPC rather than on headline price.

The mirror image of this market, the supplier-country view, is mapped in our companion guide on US mining equipment exporters, covering how North American flotation and mineral-processing OEMs reach exactly these African projects.

FX, letters of credit, and payment mechanics

The funding backdrop improved sharply. The Bank of Tanzania reclassified the shilling to floating in November 2024 under its IMF program, and the TZS appreciated roughly 9.5% against the dollar over the following year, helped by record gold receipts noted in the TanzaniaInvest mining reporting. USD availability is materially better than in 2023, though high-import quarters still see periodic tightness, so plan on confirmed letters of credit rather than open account.

For a flotation-circuit ticket, the settlement pattern is a confirmed LC above USD 200,000, with confirmation by a Tier 1 European or Gulf bank standard above USD 5 million. The Tanzanian confirming banks are CRDB, NMB, NBC, Stanbic, and Standard Chartered Tanzania. One graphite-specific wrinkle: the ASX-listed developers behind these projects raise equity and debt offshore, and with development-finance institutions in the Mahenge capital stack, package payments often settle on a project-finance schedule set by the lenders rather than the local FX cycle. Quote in EUR for European-origin equipment to avoid double conversion, budget 30 to 60 days of LC processing, and price the standard 10% commissioning retention into your cash-flow model.

Dying conventional channels for graphite processing equipment

The old routes into these buyers are losing ground. The biennial Electra Mining Africa in Johannesburg is the must-attend regional show, but it runs every two years and a Tanzanian graphite project may be tendering its flotation package in an off-year. The fully loaded cost per qualified lead from a regional mining expo lands between USD 400 and USD 900, with conversion to a real opportunity well under 5%. The Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair skews consumer-goods and SME, and graphite process engineers rarely attend.

A Dar or Mtwara-based field rep with mineral-processing knowledge runs USD 5,500 to USD 11,000 a month all-in, roughly USD 900 to USD 3,700 per qualified lead at three to six leads a month. With a buyer set this concentrated, a full-time rep is hard to justify on unit economics. Distributor and trading-house lock-in is the third drag: the legacy aftermarket houses take 15 to 30% margin and rarely run active outbound, leaving specialised flotation and reagent suppliers invisible inside their catalogues. Project operators increasingly want direct OEM engineering relationships, with distributors kept for spares. Print trade magazines and embassy trade missions generate introductions, not a repeatable flow of flotation-package RFQs.

What a flotation package costs to position around

Equipment prices for a full circuit are project-specific, set by flowsheet, throughput, and flake target, so treat any figure as indicative rather than a quote. The commercial logic runs off product value. Large and jumbo flake graphite traded in a range of roughly USD 1,200 to USD 2,400 a tonne in 2025, per Fastmarkets African graphite analysis, with coarse fractions carrying a substantial premium over fines. That premium is why the cleaning and polishing stages are over-specified relative to a base-metals plant, and it is the argument a flotation supplier should lead with: recovery rate and flake preservation, not capital cost in isolation.

FAQ

Who supplies graphite flotation circuits to Tanzania?

Tanzania imports nearly all its mineral-processing equipment. Flotation cells, regrind mills, thickeners, filters, and reagents are supplied by international process-equipment OEMs, almost always through the EPC or EPCM contractor that holds the project flowsheet rather than direct to the mine operator.

What graphite projects are buying flotation equipment in Tanzania now?

Mahenge (Black Rock Mining / Faru Graphite, launched October 2025, up to 340,000 tpa) is the largest near-term buyer. Chilalo (Evolution Energy Minerals) is advancing toward FID, Epanko (EcoGraf / Kibaran) has a defined four-stage circuit, and Lindi Jumbo (Walkabout) is in production.

Why is flake preservation so important in a graphite circuit?

Coarse flake sells at a large premium to fines, around USD 1,200 to 2,400 a tonne for large flake in 2025. Crushing, milling, and inter-stage regrinding are designed to liberate impurities while protecting flake size, and the cleaning and polishing stages are tuned to the orebody to hold the coarse-flake yield.

Do I bid the mine operator or the EPC for a flotation package?

The EPC or EPCM contractor holding the flowsheet. On African graphite plants the recurring names are Lycopodium, DRA Global, and Sedgman, alongside the owner’s project team. Get onto the contractor’s approved-vendor list after the flowsheet is locked but before the mechanical scope goes to tender. Payment runs on confirmed letters of credit, often on a project-finance schedule given the offshore capital stack.

Send us your circuit spec

If you build flotation cells, regrind and attrition mills, thickeners, filtration, drying, or screening and bagging lines, or supply the reagent system, Tanzania’s graphite pipeline is one of the sharpest greenfield process-equipment markets in Africa right now. Mahenge alone is a multi-module build with funded offtake.

Send us your spec, throughput and flake-target assumptions, any reference flowsheets, and the tonnage band you want to win, and we will route it to the right project and EPC. Contact us or reach Burak directly at burak@papaverai.com, the direct line for procurement enquiries.

papaverAI builds the outbound engine that lands English-language conversations with graphite project teams and the EPCs that hold their flowsheets, at a cost per qualified lead of USD 150 to USD 300, against USD 400 to USD 900 for a regional mining-expo lead and USD 900 to USD 3,700 for a field rep. Those traditional numbers scale linearly. The engine compounds, getting cheaper the longer it runs against a defined buyer set like this one. For the wider picture, see the Tanzania mining equipment suppliers guide, or read how the outbound engine works.