Maputo — The Australian mining company Triton Gold announced on Wednesday that it has engaged Jigsaw Geoscience to begin the exploration of its Ancuabe and Balama graphite concessions in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado.

Jigsaw will begin in March to carry out the initial mapping, soil sampling and trenching, commencing with the North Balama licence.

This will be the basis for drawing up a drilling programme that is due to start later this year.

According to Triton’s managing director, Brad Boyle, Triton is “keen to progress the project to the next stage, namely drilling, and the commencement of this first phase of the exploration programme with Jigsaw is exciting.”

Triton acquired the rights to five graphite licences in June last year from the Mozambican company Grafex.

Three of the licences are in Ancuabe district, adjacent to the licences held by the German multinational Graphit Kropfmuhl.

Graphite was mined in Ancuabe between 1992 and 1999, but operations were suspended due to the high cost of running diesel-powered electricity generators. However, the situation changed with the expansion of the national electricity grid to Ancuabe.

The other two Grafex licences cover parts of Balama district, north of the licence held by another Australian company, Syrah Resources.

In November, Syrah Resources announced that a survey of its Balama project confirmed that it contains multiple zones of high to very high grade graphite.

Graphite is a form of carbon which is highly valued due to its properties as a conductor of electricity. It is used in batteries and fuel cells, and is the basis for the “miracle material” graphene, which is the strongest material ever measured, with vast potential for use in the electronics industries.