Date: Sep 27, 2018
TNG Limited’s Mount Peake vanadium, titanium and iron project — which is on track to be Australia’s next major resources development — is quickly increasing in value due to the soaring vanadium price.
While many commodities have taken a hit in recent months, vanadium has gone from strength to strength, inflating TNG’s potential profit margins in the process.
The metal, traditionally used as a strengthening agent in construction steel (rebar or reinforcing bar), has more than trebled in price in the past 18 months – last week hitting $US20 a pound as long-term market forces took hold.
The runaway price, which some analysts say is set to go even higher as demand outstrips supply, compares with the price of $US10 a pound used by TNG in its updated Mt Peake Definitive Feasibility Study, completed in November.
The vanadium price has several key drivers. Among them has been China mandating that its construction industry use more high-strength steel to protect against earthquakes and building collapses from the use of sub-standard steel.
Demand is also on the rise thanks to the growing use of vanadium in the aerospace industry and in the energy storage and renewable energy sectors courtesy of “vanadium redox batteries” or VRBs, which have grid-scale applications in the storage and dispatch of renewable energy sources.
At the same time, the vanadium supply chain – particularly from some ageing mines in South Africa – is looking increasingly vulnerable.
