Mason Graphite’s Lac Gueret leads the field in Quebec

The earliest known producing graphite mine in the province, and possibly the country, was the Miller mine, situated in Grenville Township, 80 km west of Montreal. It was worked in the mid-1800s and most of the graphite was used in then-modern technology as a dry lubricant, because folks understood that graphite would withstand heat better than oil-based lubricants. Only a handful of graphite mines in La Belle Province have cycled in and out of production since ol’ Miller, but one has been in production for almost 30 years: the Lac des Îles mine, which was brought into production by Stratmin Graphite in 1989. The venerable Lac des Îles — currently the only operating graphite mine in North America — is now owned by Imerys Graphite and Carbon, a division of the French multinational firm Imerys. Continue reading at The Northern Miner.