Quantum Graphite Hits 80% Plant Design as Uley 2 FEED Tracks Toward Construction

Uley 2 project FEED advances on schedule as plant design reaches 80% completion

Quantum Graphite Limited‘s Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) program for the Uley 2 Project is progressing as scheduled, with two parallel workstreams moving forward concurrently across South Australia and Oman. Process plant design stands at 80% complete, costs review at 75% complete, and the first stage of the geotechnical workstream is scheduled to commence within 4 weeks. The program is being undertaken within the framework of the integrated downstream structure established under the Sunlands Pure Group, which consolidates processing and refining across two nodes: flake concentrate production on the Southern Eyre Peninsula and refining at Al Buraimi, Oman.

What FEED means for investors — and why it matters at this stage

Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) is the engineering phase that sits between a completed feasibility study and actual construction. In plain terms, it takes the technical blueprint produced by a feasibility study and translates it into a fully engineered, costed, and schedulable project that is ready for contractor bids.

Here is what that process typically involves:

1. Finalising process flow diagrams and plant layout to construction-ready specification
2. Completing a detailed cost and schedule estimate that updates prior feasibility figures
3. Producing the engineering definition required to negotiate engineering, construction and procurement (EPC) bids

The practical significance for investors is that FEED completion enables, as the announcement states, a “clean transition to project execution.” A project exiting FEED with confirmed design and updated costs is meaningfully closer to construction than one still working through feasibility. It de-risks the capital deployment decision by removing engineering uncertainty before any major spending commitment is made.

One notable point from this update: the FEED study has confirmed the process plant design as originally specified in the 2023 Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS), including the original 2019 DFS. No redesign has been required. That is a positive signal, as design changes at this stage typically carry cost and schedule consequences. The confirmation of the original design reduces execution risk heading into the next phase.

Two-node progress — Eyre Peninsula plant and Oman refinery site advancing in parallel

Southern Eyre Peninsula — mine and process plant

Engineering works completed to date across the South Australian workstream include comprehensive process flow diagrams, piping and instrumentation (P&ID) drawings, and a complete three-dimensional layout of the process plant.

The site location for the plant was also re-evaluated following the finalisation of the 20-year Ore Supply Agreement (announced 12 June 2026). The re-evaluation was specifically to ensure that future expansion of the operation could be expedited without impacting existing operations — a forward-thinking design consideration that builds flexibility into the project’s footprint from the outset.

Key figures from this workstream:

• Plant design: 80% complete
• Costs review updating the 2023 DFS capital and operating costs: 75% complete
• Geotechnical workstream: scheduled to commence within 4 weeks

Al Buraimi, Oman — refinery site preparation underway

Following the completion of the Environmental Impact Study for the refinery site (announced 29 June 2026), site preparatory works have been scheduled. The sequence of planned activities is:

• LIDAR survey program to produce high-resolution three-dimensional mapping of the 2,600,000m² site
• Land surveys and preparation of detailed survey plans for the whole site
• Hydrology and geotechnical phases, which depend on the survey outputs above

Lease negotiations with Madayn, Oman’s industrial land agency, are described as “well progressed.” The terms being negotiated will include incentives explicitly structured to support the refinery precinct plan and its long-term expansion plans. The involvement of the host country’s industrial land agency in structuring incentives around the refinery is relevant context when assessing sovereign support and project risk at this location.

What comes next — from FEED completion to project execution

When the FEED program concludes, the Uley 2 Project will have its final engineering definition in place. That means a completed detailed design, an updated cost and schedule estimate, and the documentation required to negotiate EPC bids with construction contractors. These outputs represent the commercial bridge between engineering and shovels in the ground.

The company has indicated it expects to make further announcements as the FEED progresses. No specific completion dates for the FEED program were provided in the announcement.

The commercial destination that gives this engineering work its strategic purpose is the integrated Sunlands Pure Group structure: flake concentrate produced on the Eyre Peninsula, refined at Al Buraimi, and supplied to manufacturers in the Li-ion battery anode, isostatic graphite, and thermal energy storage markets. The Sunlands Pure Group technologies are capable of purifying natural flake graphite to 99.9% graphitic carbon purity. The parallel progress across both nodes reflects the integrated nature of that commercial model — progress at one site is structurally linked to readiness at the other.

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