Pulling together some of my earlier thoughts so they are all in the one spot.
1. Construction not slowing down any time soon all over the world there are massive multiyear infrastructure projects to support growing populations and switch to renewables. Housing crises in numerous countries (1.6B people impacted by 2025 according to worldbank) that is going to see a massive explosion in medium and high density residential building (high steel use) as well as new suburbs being created that need connection to existing infrastructure via bridges, freeway ramps etc. (this is exacerbated by the lack of availability of land that can easily be connected into existing cities). In terms of inflation one of the best ways to fight inflation is through renewables, also many countries are keen to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels and take OPEC from price makers to price takers. Regardless of what interest rates are at many places won't have a choice but to keep pushing on with infrastructure.
2. We have commerical VRFBs in Aus now, the big thing for me will be as lithium becomes scarce and expensive, people will look for alternatives. The ability to recycle vanadium, and the fact you don't need fire suppression systems with vanadium batteries (in comparison with lithium), will become major ticks when companies are weighing up the two optiions.
3. Chinese don't have primary vanadium mines, all their production comes as a byproduct from slag, so they can't increase or decrease supply based on demand. China can't smelter away iron ore forever to get more vanadium due to their pollution issues, and needing to have a balanced stockpile of the materials. Brazil are Australia's only real competitor in the primary producer space, with South Africa and Russia having their problems.
4. Supply chain issues are being felt and are having an impact, so the chance of TATA or a Japanese partner putting in funding to secure a % of our production each year is very likely. Many companies globally are having to substitute goods as they cannot procure the goods they require. TATA or LE systems or another party don't want this
5, I think whilst waiting for EPAs, Ian and the team are looking hard at us leasing out vanadium electrolyte as a value add. This makes a lot of sense as we have 25 years where we will have a lot of cash, so leasing out and retaining the vanadium as an asset seems like a brilliant idea to turn this from a 25 year cash grab, to a buy and hold until we all cark it. I can see this working particularly well given how hard capital might become to raise over the next 5-10 years, so lowering the upfront costs for battery owners could be a great move.
We've had EPA on site, a news article, over subscribed cap raise, RCF loading up in the neighbours, first commercial VRFB in Aus etc.
Lot coming in the near future and the low Shares on Issue is really going to come into it's own as people try grab their share.
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