But the
current vanadium market is not relevant to Australian Vanadium? (Or hardly?)
That is the company has already reminded that daily spot prices are only a reflection of non-contracted vanadium supplies.
And so far AVL doesn’t even have full environmental permissions or funding much less a final investment decision or development contractors to apply themselves to the long season of establishing infrastructure that’s needed before mining can even commence, after that there’s processing be tested and proved, and then stockpiles readied for shipping.
How many years will that take?
As I understand it US Vanadium currently has all its vanadium needs contracted to an Indian company until October 2026 so it’s obviously not expecting to employ it’s offtake MOU with AVL before then?
And last May - just a year back - Resource Capital Funds
(AVL’s long-visioned cornerstone investor with about 18.5% of shares and a $42m (?) investment here over the last few years) wrote that it is only after
2030 that it expects the demand for vanadium to increase significantly.
3. Power storage and grid infrastructure
The intermittent nature of renewable power generation means that the establishment of energy storage systems is critical to the resilience of the energy grid. This will require the build out of substantial battery systems which represents further demand for metals. As a key component of lithium-ion battery anodes10, graphite is projected to grow in demand by 25% by 204011.
Vanadium flow batteries (VFBs), which are well suited for grid storage roles, are expected to become commercially available around 2030 and are projected to increase the demand for Vanadium by over 100x. Significant investment and expansion of power infrastructure will be required to ensure a resilient and reliable grid network as reliance on renewable and more dispersed energy sources occurs, this investment will increase demand for copper, which is expected to more than double between 2030 and 204012. [ref]
To me discovering the fate of Bushveld and its’ subsidiaries is more interesting than following current sales of vanadium although I do understand it will impact the future.
(20min delay)