urbanization of emerging economies...

Urbanization of emerging economies good for ferrovanadium: Atlantic MD

Melbourne (Platts)--27Jan2012/152 am EST/652 GMT

The demand outlook for vanadium products should be strong over the coming years as urbanization of countries like China and India will see growth in specialized steel products, which require vanadium.

"There's a lot of drivers happening, whether it's motor vehicles, whether it's washing machines, whether it's structural steels, whether it's just across the board, as the world urbanizes it needs better quality steels and those better quality steels can only be achieved through using ferrovanadium or vanadium as a strengthening agent," Michael Minosora, managing director of Australia's Atlantic Ltd. told Platts in an interview.

Minosora said he expects China will need around 20,000 mt/year of vanadium by the next two years. He also expects the urbanization of other countries nearby China, including Vietnam, as well as developing African countries will see demand increase further.

"There are many countries that are progressing particularly well, so there's going to be demand driven from those countries. So just the base level of steel demand, I think is going to be strong looking forward," he said.

In early January, Atlantic began production of ferrovanadium from its Windimurra plant in Western Australia. The company expects to have annual production of 6,300 mt/year, and will reach capacity by the first quarter 2013.

Atlantic expects to sell most of its Windimurra production into the American market in the short term, where they see a deficit in supply of around 14,000 mt.

link: http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/Metals/7090683

Btw, I rate MM coming good on his participation in the recent cap raising as better than 99%. Shouldn't prejudge someone when you don't have a clue where the $5.4m is coming from. And just for the record, I very much doubt that he would risk jeopardising his creditability over this matter.