vanadium - what a by-product!

Now we know why the Bankable Feasibility Study isn't out yet. The vanadium part of the business is, as Helen Reddy said, "Too big to ignore".

A separate Scoping Study has been launched for the vanadium side of the business, with two cases being considered, 5K tonnes per year and 10K tonnes per year. 10K tonnes per year would represent about 9% of total current world production, which would propel Balama right onto the world vanadium stage.

The basic concentrate has now been upgraded to a V2O5 chemical powder, of 98.5% V2O5, worth about $12.50 to $15.00 per kg. Currently, work is being done to upgrade a portion of this to 99.9% V2O5, which is worth upwards of $500 per kg.

The net of this is that, at the 10K tonne per year case, vanadium would generate revenue in the range of $120m to $150m, which therefore means that vanadium could add roughly 50% to the revenue generated by the graphite alone.

So it is not a surprise that the results of the vanadium Scoping Study (due end-May) will be incorporated into the BFS, which will result in the BFS date being shifted back by about four months.

And all this appears to be based on the inital production of 220K tonnes of graphite per year.

This surely means that expansion of graphite production for aluminium anodes, steel refractories, and so on, with a big associated jump in vanadium production, will do nothing but good things for SYR profitability.

Cheers, Prime1