New Vanadium Project Update In Australia
www.ferroalloynet.com: Till now the new vanadium project in Australia remains to encounter environmental assessment which may have some improvement in late 2021.
Atlantic Pty Ltd: The Windimurra vanadium project is located approximately 670 kilometres north of Perth and 80 kilometres by road from Mount Magnet in Western Australia. Atlantic has completed a definitive feasibility study (DFS) for the development of the Windimurra vanadium project. The study focused on engineering upgrades to the existing plant and infrastructure to successfully develop and operate the project over a long mine life. Atlantic expects to make a final decision to precede with the development of the Windimurra project in 2021 with construction beginning in the second half of 2021 and first production in 2022. Atlantic expects to produce approximately 7,600 tonnes per annum of high purity vanadium pentoxide flake (V2O5) at steady state. .
Technology Metals Australia’s (TMT): Primary exploration focus is a project called the Gabanintha Vanadium Project (GVP), located 40 km south east of Meekatharra in the mid-west region of Western Australia. It seeks to develop a processing technique to produce high purity vanadium pentoxide, with the goal of becoming one of the world’s largest single primary vanadium producers, catering to the rapidly expanding flow battery market as well as steel markets. The current mineral resource at Yarrabubba is 28Mt grading 39% Fe and 0.9% V2O5. Initial test work has confirmed that a high iron (>63%) vanadium rich (>1.6% V2O5) magnetite product can be produced. Technology Metals delivered the findings of its Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) in August 2019. Right now it is in the final stage for environmental assessment, which may have update in late 2021 or early 2022.
Neometals Ltd: Neometals wholly owns the Barrambie titanium and vanadium project (Barrambie) which has a granted mining permit. Barrambie is located approximately 80km Northwest of Sandstone in Western Australia and is one of the largest vanadiferous-titanomagnetite (“VTM”) resources globally (280.1Mt at 9.18% TiO2 and 0.44% V2O5), containing the world’s second highest-grade hard rock titanium resource (53.6Mt at 21.17% TiO2 and 0.63% V2O5) and high-grade vanadium resource (64.9Mt at 0.82% V2O5 and 16.9% TiO2) subsets based on the latest Neometals 2018 Mineral Resource Estimate. In March, Neometals’ (NMT) Chinese partner, IMUMR, has commenced pilot trials on gravity concentrates from the Barrambie Titanium and Vanadium Project in WA. The pilot program comes after successful testwork in China, which confirmed Neometals’ reductive roasting and magnetic separation flowsheet. The pilot trials are expected to be complete in the June 2021 quarter. At the same time, Neometals (ASX:NMT) announced that Primobius, its 50-50 joint venture with German-based SMS Group, has signed an MoU with Japan’s conglomerate giant Itochu Corporation for battery recycling.