Shares in the company of battery anodes and advanced materials Talga Group Ltd. (ASX: TLG) are gaining ground today and are currently trading 7.33% higher at $ 1.83.

Talga’s share price attracts bids as investors react positively to the announcement of its Electric Vehicle Anode Qualification (EVA) plant under construction in Sweden.

What did Talga announce?

Talga said the EVA plant is under construction within the metals research institute, Swerim, located in Sweden. It will produce Talga’s flagship lithium-ion battery anode material called Talnode-C for large-scale customer qualification testing.

EVA uses “high quality purified natural graphite” from the Vittangi graphite project in Talga, also in Sweden, to make the precursor material for Talnode-C.

It would be the first lithium-ion battery anode production plant in Europe, according to the statement.

Talga notes that on-site construction activities are now underway, while structural and electrical work is largely complete. While international shipping delays have affected some delivery dates, Talga does not expect a negative impact on its schedule.

Further batches of precursor material will be made from graphite from a 2021-2022 test mine which completed its first phase of development in October 2021. The first batch of this’ graphite feed concentrate extracted from ‘test’ was produced and stored for commissioning of the plant. .

Commenting on the factory update, Talga General Manager Mark Thompson said:

The EVA plant is a key step in Talga’s mission to enable the world’s greenest batteries and represents real progress towards local decarbonization strategies. We look forward to the commissioning of the first coated anode production plant in Europe and the further qualification of our Talnode® products with Li-ion battery manufacturers.

What else did Talga bring out?

The company followed up with an announcement on its Vittangi site. Talga said she had received the first assay results from a recent drilling program on the project.

Talga says that all of the drill holes “successfully intersected the targeted graphite unit approximately 100m in direction and returned significant results of high grade (Cg) graphite near the surface.”

Speaking on the test results, Thompson said:

We are very satisfied with the graphite results which are starting to arrive from the 2021 drilling in Vittangi. The grades are among the highest ever obtained for the project, thus improving the potential for optimization of the mining plan and upward revision of ore reserves. This supports our goal of producing green anodes by further minimizing the project’s footprint and is an exciting development in this time of rising graphite material prices. We look forward to further results from the results of the drilling and further development of this strategically important resource for battery manufacturers in Europe.

Talga’s share price has underperformed over the past 12 months, posting a loss of 7% over that period. Despite the struggles, it has recovered this year so far and is up 13% from January 1.

In the past month, it hit a low of $ 0.148 and closed at $ 2.20 on November 9, before returning to current levels.