New U.S. joint venture Strategic Graphite Partners LLC to advance allied-sourced Albany ultra-high-purity graphite for U.S. energy, defense, and national-security markets.
Guelph, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - June 26, 2026) - Zentek Ltd. (TSXV: ZEN) (NASDAQ: ZTEK) ("Zentek" or the "Company") today announced it has formed Strategic Graphite Partners LLC ("Strategic Graphite Partners" or the "JV"), a joint venture with ALO Graphite Partners LLC ("ALO Partners").
Joint Venture Structure and Terms
Strategic Graphite Partners was formed to establish a United States footprint for Zentek's Albany ultra-high-purity graphite in energy, defense, and national-security markets. The JV is 90% owned by Zentek USA Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Zentek, and 10% owned by ALO Partners, a company owned and controlled by Perkin Industries and Jeremy Roenick.
The JV's initial mandate is to support U.S. customer engagement and material qualification, offtake discussions, strategic industry engagement, U.S. government relations, and the evaluation of potential U.S. federal and allied government funding opportunities for allied-sourced Albany material. Albany has not been contributed to the JV.
In connection with the arrangement, Zentek has entered into consulting agreements with Jeremy Roenick and Nicolas Perkin to support the Company and the JV with strategic industry engagement, U.S. government relations, and related services. Pursuant to the Company's omnibus long-term incentive plan, Zentek has granted each consultant 50,000 stock options, exercisable for 24 months at a price of C$0.56 per common share. The options vest in tranches based on ALO Partners achieving aggregate capital contribution milestones to the JV.
A North American Solution to an Allied-Sourcing Gap
Graphite is a designated critical mineral in the United States, Canada, and allied nations, and is classified among U.S. strategic defense critical minerals. Today, ultra-high-purity and nuclear-grade graphite processing sits overwhelmingly outside the NATO-aligned world, and the United States continues to source most of its natural graphite from non-allied suppliers.
The United States is 100% reliant on imported natural graphite and mines none domestically, and China has supplied close to half of those imports in recent years (U.S. Geological Survey). Accessing the federal and allied funding now directed at rebuilding this industry requires qualified, allied-sourced material and a presence inside the U.S. value chain. That is the gap Strategic Graphite Partners is built to close. Albany's material is not commodity flake or battery-anode graphite. It has been purified at bench scale to 5N+ (99.9992% Cg) consistent with nuclear-grade specifications and is intended for the highest-specification end of the market, where buyers qualify material rather than purchase on volume.