Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) said Tuesday it agreed to acquire technology and U.S. assets of privately owned Superior Graphite, a leader in the graphite industry with more than 100 years of experience in graphite and materials production, for an unspecified sum.
The deal includes a production facility in Kentucky, where Exxon (NYSE:XOM) said it plans to begin producing advanced synthetic graphite at commercial levels in 2029, and research facilities in Illinois.
The deal is the latest in a series of small bets Exxon (XOM) is making to produce the materials needed to power electric cars and trucks and help balance supply and demand of energy on power grids.
“Like in any market, there are fluctuations in the near term. But we fundamentally see the demand for batteries and electric vehicles and, increasingly, in large-scale energy storage solutions, increasing over the longer term,” Exxon’s (XOM) VP of new market development Dave Andrew told The New York Times.
Graphite is attractive partly because China produces or processes nearly all of the material that is used in batteries, providing strong political and financial incentives for U.S. companies to develop domestic supplies of the material.
“We have good indications that what we’re bringing to the market in terms of differentiated material and scalable investments is something that, quite frankly, the U.S. domestic supply chain is looking for,” Andrew told NYT.