Ann: TNG Shareholder Newsletter, page-40

Hi Rhino, Im with you in that the two paras wouldnt survive grammatical analysis ( but then i cant put a post together without massive errors no matter how hard i try).

Sometime I/we read too much into things anyway and as PB say "watch this space". Remember way back (ill find it when i get a moment to look) it may have been after a promotion at around the time SMS made public their connection to TNG, one of their representatives was present and confirmed TIVAN was bullet proof and potentually a game changer. I am still stuck with that comment.

I think he was refering to the shift from Vanadium production as a bi product of uranium mining and/or a bi product of steel manufacture to "primary mining". There was at the time and still isnt a refinery extracting all comodities from titanomagnetite resrves. At that time Largo in Maracas Brazil was pretty much it as far as primary V production went using a traditional refinery and focussing on V only. Windimurra had closed and Bushveld was trying to put everything together.

Things have moved on a bit as V prices have made bi product production economic again, Largo has extended it operation to include its Nova Ampara prospect, Bushveld is up and operating, every man and his dog is prospecting for the next V producer. Their are a few green field prospects for primary vanadium mining that are not titanomagnetite resources that look commercial for eg NetSource Materials Project in Madagascar (as I recall) that is a sediment rather than magnetite based resource and could go into production possibly. But the future appears to be titanomagnetite based.

Of the primary v miners, Bushveld really interests me, fistly it has three V projects, only one of which is currently producing. Secondly it took over the mothballed Evraz refinery (previously used for steel bi product production) The refinery is traditional salt roast extraction, (the Vemetco operation) . Thirdly the as i understand it their reserves are megnetite reserves and may be titanomagnetite reserves. Fourthly while Bushvelds current operation is under off take contract for Nitrovan (a ferrovanadium product) with a few years to go, Bushveld are now well funded with good cash flow and are looking to expand, refine production costs from the concentrator through to the refinery and also get into vanadium electrolyte production focussing on supply of ESS within Africa. So three focuses stand out , better extraction of their resources, upgrading of their refinery and also electrolyte production. SMS have a big presence in SA and in the Bushveld belt, although i believe their work has been mainly in steel refinery and chromium extraction too date. It may be that the Bushveld operation ticks all the boxes for SMS and also for KfW who have a leaning towards emerging nation development. It may also be important that SMS now have the detailed engineering expertise to go from mine to production refinery as avresult of their work with TNG.

Is Bushveld the target of the "watch this space" tantiliser? If so there could be a refinery upgrade, vanadium electrolyte plant and royalties all in the one bag.

wild speculation i accept but a nice senario to pul together.