Australia-based Syrah Resources has bought itself more time to keep an important battery supply agreement alive with Tesla, after the two companies agreed to extend the deadline to resolve an alleged breach of their graphite offtake deal for a third time.
According to Reuters, Syrah and Tesla have now pushed the “cure” deadline to March 16, 2026, as they work to address technical issues at Syrah’s Vidalia, Louisiana processing facility, which supplies active anode material for lithium-ion batteries.
The original agreement was signed in 2021, with an initial deadline of September 16, 2025, before being extended to November 15 and then January 16, reflecting how challenging it has been to qualify battery-grade graphite at commercial scale.
The latest extension also comes with an important clause. Tesla retains the right to terminate the agreement if Syrah’s material does not meet its technical requirements by February 9, meaning the March extension is effectively a final window for Syrah to prove it can consistently deliver conforming graphite.
“While Syrah does not accept it is in default under the offtake agreement, the parties have extended the cure date to March 16, 2026 and are closely collaborating to cure the alleged default,” the company said in a statement.
The 2021 agreement covers the supply of 8,000 metric tons of graphite per year over four years and is central to Tesla’s strategy to build a domestic, non-Chinese battery supply chain in the United States. Syrah’s Vidalia facility is currently the only vertically integrated, large-scale anode material producer outside China, making it a critical piece of Tesla’s effort to reduce reliance on Chinese graphite, which still dominates the global market.
Tesla issued its first default notice in July 2025, not because Syrah failed to deliver material, but because the active anode material produced at Vidalia did not meet Tesla’s technical specifications for use in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Producing battery-grade anode material is notoriously complex, requiring tight control over purity, particle size, electrochemical performance, and long-term stability — hurdles that often take months or years for new facilities to overcome.
