Last week while he was in Sydney I was lucky enough to get out for a quick dinner and a fish with my old mate Ian Prentice, the Managing Director of Technology Metals Australia Limited (TMT.asx) to discuss their memorandum of understanding signed with Tata Steel, one of the largest steelmakers in the world with an annual crude steel production capacity of 34mtpa.
Our old mate Ken's Tanks tagged along too and boy did we catch some fish but I will save that for another sunny Wednesday but thanks again boys for a good evening !!!
TMT is currently developing its high-purity, long life vanadium mine, the Murchison Technology Metals Project (MTMP) in WA’s Murchison region with a global ore reserve of 44.5Mt @ 0.89% V2O5 across the two deposits, **anintha and Yarrabubba.
I’m told by Ian that this translates to a mine life of more than 25 years, and on top of their high-quality vanadium pentoxide product, they will also produce ilmenite (TiO2).
Technology Metals Australia is currently trading at 36.5c taking their market cap to $76.5m, and as of 30 September they held $15.1m with no debt, so they cashed up.
Back to the Tata Steel MOU, the two parties started talking when Ian visited India as part of an Invest and Trade WA mission.
He’s been told that India’s steel production forecast is expected to grow to ~300Mt by 2030 from ~118Mt in 2021, with most of the focus on making high strength, low alloy steel that can be used for more advanced applications like high-speed rail.
This will need vanadium – and lots of it.
The addition of a small amount of vanadium can increase steel strength by up to 100% and at the same time reduce its weight by up to 30%.
The intensity of use rate for vanadium per tonne of steel in India is about 0.039.
So, with this increase in steel production, India’s use of vanadium will go from 4,675 tonnes per annum (equivalent to ~8,350 V2O5) to around 11,900 tonnes of vanadium (equivalent to 21,200 tonnes of V2O5).
TMT plans to produce around ~12,500tpa of V2O5, so do the math's on that & DYOR as always. In light of this, Tata Steel and TMT will talk about offtakes, technical collaboration, and downstream processing of the V2O5 to ferrovanadium or vanadium nitride.
The technical collaboration will investigate vanadium content, impurities and resulting impact on steel characteristics, and they’ll also look into optimal production processing routes and whether they should convert the V2O5 in India or in Australia.
Significantly, Tata Steel could provide financing into TMT or the MTMP - that's the dream anyway and dreams do turn into reality sometimes.
Caution not saying it will but you get the idea and this isn't research as I am no analist.
Anyway while all this talk of vanadium in steel alloys is great, the very promising and emerging sector in which vanadium’s shine is increasing, is in battery storage space.
TMT’s V2O5 can be processed into vanadium electrolyte, the major component in vanadium redox flow batteries.
Essentially flow batteries are rechargeable batteries whereby electrolyte flows through one or more electrochemical cells from one or more tanks, converting chemical energy into electrical energy through reversible oxidation and reduction of working fluids.
Vanadium electrolyte has been shown to offer the lowest cost per kWh stored due to its long 20+ year lifespan, with no degradation or performance loss.
The vanadium is fully reusable and recycling, and critically, you use multiple forms of one element – vanadium – to store and release charges, which means we don’t need any other elements for it to work.
With all the renewable energy sources being built all over the world (solar, hydro, wind) – vanadium redox flow batteries provide stable stationary energy storage solutions.
You might also be interested to know, vanadium has been identified as a critical mineral in Europe, the USA, and here in Australia.
Usually means there isn't much around but I don't run any of those countries above.....just yet !!!
The West Australian recently wrote an interesting article on TMT recently which you can find below:
http://bit.ly/3W0szP9
You can also find a media release from WA Government (Deputy Premier Roger Cook and Minister for Mines Bill Johnston) underneath:
Good old Billy - I think he might even be on this list too - if so thumbs up from me old mate & we are long overdue a fish next time you are in town if you happen to read this tonight.
http://bit.ly/3W1JSPK
|
Wealth Advisor | EverBlu Capital
|
