Both numbers are true. This page explains how.
Before you read on: how much of the anode graphite that Europe’s battery factories need is made in Europe?
The answer follows in Finding #4.
The anode, the negative side of every lithium-ion cell, is made of graphite.
Simplified cross-section while charging. Tap or click the anode for more information.
The anode stores the lithium. When the battery charges, lithium ions slide in between the thin layers of graphite; when it discharges, they flow back.
The anode is about 30% of a cell’s weight but only about 12% of its cost. A heavy part with thin margins: one reason few companies outside China invested in making it.
Shares: Park et al. (2025), Geosciences Journal 29, citing Fastmarkets (2024).
Natural graphite is mined; synthetic (artificial) graphite is made from oil and coal by-products. Both end up as the same anode material. On this page the synthetic route is drawn as a dashed line.
Customs records don’t say “battery-grade”. So each shipment of natural graphite is sorted by its price per tonne: cheap means raw, expensive means processed.
China’s share of world exports of mined flake, and where the EU bought its flake in 2025.
China’s share of world exports of mined flake (natural graphite under US$1,300 per tonne), by value.
Source: CEPII BACI (HS12, V202601); own calculations. 2024 provisional.
Share of EU imports of mined flake from outside the EU, 2025, by tonnes.
Source: Eurostat Comext (monthly data summed for 2025); own calculations.
But China still mines about three quarters of the world’s graphite (77% in 2023). If it no longer sells that graphite raw, what does it do with it?
Mine production: Park et al. (2025), citing Fastmarkets (2024).
China’s share of world exports of mined graphite fell from 60% to 24% (2012–16 vs 2022–24), while its share of refined graphite rose from 55% to 70%. China refines its own ore and synthetic feedstock, so new mines elsewhere don’t loosen its grip.
Choose one step at a time. Exports in US dollars; the EU is one block, trade between EU countries left out. Hover a route for details; click a country to show only its routes.
Choose a key moment to see where the big changes happened.
Source: CEPII BACI (HS12, V202601); own calculations. Natural graphite split by price per tonne; largest 10 routes per step shown.
China’s share of world exports of mined flake and of refined graphite, and the share of other countries’ mined flake that is sent to China (by tonnes).
Source: CEPII BACI (HS12, V202601); own calculations.
Europe buys much of its finished anode material from Korea and Japan. Surely that’s safe?
Only 37% of the EU’s coated anode material comes directly from China, but up to 98% traces back to Chinese refined graphite. Battery-grade artificial graphite comes 97% directly from China.
EU imports of coated natural graphite from outside the EU, 2022–24, by supplier (value).
Click the button to see where the Korean and Japanese suppliers bought their refined graphite.
Source: CEPII BACI (HS12, V202601); own calculations. Coated = natural graphite at US$4,000 per tonne and over.
China’s share of EU imports of artificial graphite from outside the EU, by value.
Source: CEPII BACI (HS12, V202601); own calculations.
In January 2026 the EU gave battery-grade artificial graphite its own customs code (CN 3801 10 10). For the first time, the statistics show it directly: 97% comes from China, and 95% of it goes to Poland, home of Europe’s largest battery cell factory.
Source: Eurostat Comext, Jan–Jul 2026, by tonnes.
Then why not make it in Europe?
Battery cell factories and anode plants in the EU and the European Economic Area (Norway), October 2026: about 4,400 of 250,000–300,000 tonnes a year, and almost everything else is announced, not built.
Cell factories (circles, by GWh a year) and anode material plants (diamonds, by tonnes a year). Click a marker for details and its source.
Sources: Bruegel, J.D. Power, company releases, CRMA strategic projects, industry trackers; compiled October 2026. Planned capacity is announced, not committed.
Each square is 1% of the anode graphite Europe’s operating cell factories would need: 250,000–300,000 tonnes a year (1.0–1.2 kg per kWh).
You didn’t lock in a guess. The dashed outline shows 30%.
1.5%
About 4,400 tonnes a year, from two operating plants (Vianode in Norway, Tokai COBEX in France).
Recorded EU imports of anode material are below this need: factories run below capacity, and some material may enter under other customs codes. This is an open question.
Sources: Bruegel (cell capacity about 250 GWh), company releases (anode plants). Need and capacity explained in the methodology.
Two ways to read a supply dependency, what each predicts for graphite, and what the trade data shows.
Prediction for graphite: as Europe’s sources of mined graphite diversify, its dependency on China should shrink.
This is how energy security has long been thought about: the risk is losing access to the resource itself, as with oil (see Kelanic, Black Gold and Blackmail, 2020). The usual remedies are more suppliers and larger stocks.
Prediction for graphite: if one step stays concentrated, diversifying the others changes little.
States that hold the central points of an economic network can use them as leverage (Farrell & Newman, “Weaponized Interdependence”, International Security, 2019). Their argument concerns financial and information networks; we apply it to a physical supply chain.
What the data shows: Europe’s sources of mined graphite did diversify, yet the dependency remained, because it sits at refining. The evidence fits the chokepoint lens better. China’s own export controls point the same way: they started with flake and spherical graphite in 2023 and extended to anode material and cells in 2025.
China’s share of world exports at each step, 2022–24 average, by value.
China is the largest exporter of refined and synthetic graphite every year; in coated material Korea and Japan lead, but with Chinese input.
Source: CEPII BACI (HS12, V202601); own calculations.
What comes next. Does Europe’s debate see the chokepoint? See How we talk about it. And in March 2025, China’s share of the EU’s natural graphite imports suddenly dropped. What happened next? See Talk vs trade.