ABAT is the Nasdaq ticker for American Battery Technology Company, a Reno firm that runs a lithium-ion battery recycling plant in Nevada and owns an undeveloped lithium deposit near Tonopah. The recycling plant produces all of the revenue. The lithium project has produced none.
The two halves sit at completely different stages.
What the Nevada plant actually sells
Revenue comes from black mass and mixed-metal byproducts recovered from spent batteries, not from finished battery materials.
Feedstock arrives from end-of-life electric and hybrid vehicles, consumer electronics, and battery energy storage systems attached to data centers, the same buildout that turned TeraWulf into an AI hosting landlord.
The plant reached positive gross margin in the quarter ended 31 March 2026. Revenue was $7.8 million against $7.1 million of cost of goods sold, per the company’s 10-Q. A year earlier the same lines read $1.0 million and $3.7 million.
Preliminary unaudited figures for the June quarter show $8.2 million of revenue, $1.3 million of gross profit, $50.3 million of cash and zero debt. The same release notes KPMG has not reviewed them.
The export rule that starts on 27 August 2026
Black mass sales are the majority of ABAT’s total revenue, and the company discloses that substantially all of its black mass customers sit outside the United States.
A Commerce Department temporary final rule published on 6 August 2026 requires US sellers to allocate 100 percent of monthly black mass sales to US persons. It takes effect on 27 August 2026.
ABAT has asked the Bureau of Industry and Security for an exception, and notes that BIS intends to respond within 14 days. No exception had been granted as of the 20 August release. The comment period runs to 4 November 2026.
Tonopah Flats is a study, not a mine
The October 2025 pre-feasibility study designs 30,000 tonnes per year of lithium hydroxide monohydrate over a 45-year mine life, with an after-tax NPV at 8 percent of $2.57 billion and an IRR of 21.8 percent.
A pre-feasibility study is an engineering document, not a funded project.
The definitive feasibility study has only just begun. NEPA baseline studies went in after a two-year effort overseen by the Bureau of Land Management across 21 study areas, and no Record of Decision has been issued.
The Metals Company’s seabed permit queue sits in the same category, where a finished engineering case waits on an agency calendar.
The Department of Energy grant funding the first processing train was terminated in October 2025, appealed, and reinstated on 2 June 2026. It covers $57.7 million of a $115.5 million project, with ABAT matching dollar for dollar.
Reading the loss line
ABAT reported a $33.8 million net loss for the March quarter. Roughly $24.5 million of that was non-cash stock compensation for executive performance awards the board finalized in January 2026.
Cash used in operating activities for the same quarter was $2.7 million. Share count moved from 97.4 million at 30 June 2025 to 132.3 million at 31 March 2026, funded by warrant exercises and an at-the-market sales program.
That financing cleared the debt to zero and expanded the share count by about a third. Four customers accounted for 90 percent of nine-month revenue, and the filing does not name them.
Is ABAT profitable?
No. Gross margin turned positive in the March 2026 quarter, but the company reported a $53.4 million net loss across nine months and carries a $313.5 million accumulated deficit per its 10-Q.
Does ABAT produce lithium yet?
Not commercially. It has operated a claystone-to-lithium-hydroxide demonstration plant, while the Tonopah Flats mine and refinery remain in feasibility and permitting, a schedule pattern also visible in QuantumScape’s solid-state timeline.
What would change the picture?
The company’s own performance-award milestones name three tests: a positive NEPA Record of Decision, a final investment decision on Tonopah Flats, and $100 million of revenue plus government contract reimbursements across four consecutive quarters.
