Vanadium up 19%, page-13

TNG sits in the box seat, assuming statutory complience/approvals and finance.

TIVAN metallurgical process has been a pathway for the extraction of iron, titanium and vanadium from titomagnitite resource.

Almost without exception vanadium production has been a bi pruduct process mostly from steel production and by further refining of slag or fly ash. There are other sources notably oil processing and uranium mining.

The primary refining process seems to have been "Alkali Roasting" of the bi product source. Refer as egs Highveld Steel production and Vanchem Refinery and Vemetco Alloys. Formerly Evraz South Africa and Evraz's Nizhny Tagil Steel Mill in Russia.

There are or were 6 others producing out of China and some others including NZ Steel and Windimurra in Australia.

Evraz has wound down its SA opperation and sold Vametco in Bushveld complex to Bushveld Minerals.

Windimurra suffered damage in 2014 and i dont understand to have been brought back to production.

In addition the iron ore market has gone through a downward cycle reducing production therefore available vanadium bearing slag etc.

Net result is production of vanadium from traditional bi product sources has been compromised.

Add in issues in China (tariffs put on exports) and Russia (trade embargos) and the supply chain has been further compromised.

At the present there are (as best i can tell) two primary vanadium producers, Maracas Largo Resources in Brazil with offtakes to Glencore and Rhovan in Bushveld Complex in SA formerly Xtrata now Glencore. These two producers account for c 10 % global production.

So with reduced steel manufacture, global politics and mine closures the supply demand picture for vanadium has become very positive.

Enter Energy Storage and the ever increasing market for grid size energy storage. VRF is gaining a place as a real option if not prefered option. 1 megawatt hour storage requires something like 5000 metric tonnes of vanadium electrolyte.

VanadiumCorp and Prophecy and others are Co/s that are sitting and waiting for a vanadium price that will enable them to settle on an extraction process focussing primarily on Vanadium for the electrolyte market. They have yet not settled on a refining process and in some cases their various resources have previously been demonstrated to be otherwise uneconomic.

There are a couple of core reasons for this, firstly the Alkili Roasting process has not been ideal for a primary producer being compromised by other commodities and impurities, secondly their resources are primarily titomagnitite and they are prepared to forsake to some extent the value of recovering titanium and iron placing all value on vanadium.

TNG by contrast has TIVAN which extracts at high recovery % and purity all 3 commodities. TIVAN appears to be the only metallurgical process that has been shown to achieve this result. Net result lowest cost producer (given the ability to get into production) option as primary vanadium producer.

So when you stand back and look at the big picture for TNG, increasing demand for both titanium and vanadium, bankable DFS, lowest cost production model, advanced refinary process, significantly ahead of potential competitors in the supply chain.

All it needs is approvals, consents and finance.

So close you can smell it.

(Note I have penned this post as a general overview focusing on as i see it key points. Others may take a different view or favour other points. Feel free to challenge if you wish. Debate is healthy. )