Date: Oct 25, 2018
Palm Beach, FL – October 23, 2018 – Vanadium is the latest super metal that could serve as the cornerstone of a disruptive new trend: electrical energy storage. Resource companies such as United Battery Metals(OTC:UBMCF) (CSE:UBM) have begun to target this trend, opting to develop a vanadium project in Wray Mesa, Colorado. The company also has a footprint in uranium mining, a space that includes miners such as Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN) (OTC:IVPAF) and Largo Resources (TSX:LGO) (OTC:LGORF). Other players in the vanadium space include Clean TeQ(TSX:CLQ) (OTC:CTEQF) and mining giant Glencore PLC (OTC:GLNCY).
For miners such as United Battery Metals (OTCPK:UBMCF) (CSE:UBM), the vanadium opportunity could be one to watch out for. Vanadium has several practical applications, including uses in solar, wind, grid power storage, and the production of steel rebar. Vanadium is crucial to the U.S. for its domestic steel production which has been jumpstarted since the Trump administration was elected. With U.S. Steel and other major steel companies opening new projects and canceling previous closures, the nation’s producers could require a serious amount of vanadium to strengthen their steel products.
Vanadium is one of the 35 elements the U.S. government has deemed critical to the world’s largest economy and national security, which could expedite UBM’s Wray Mesa project located in Colorado to go into possible production. As the trade war with China intensifies, it could become crucial for America to secure a domestic supply of vanadium and focus on putting mines into production, a move the U.S. administration is expected to support. Vanadium’s many use cases have helped drive the price of V2O5 vanadium pentoxide flake 98{3a701354f219a57e7e7d46a505b70225e975b940de2dd07556e20488ab77339d}, a common form of vanadium, up 400{3a701354f219a57e7e7d46a505b70225e975b940de2dd07556e20488ab77339d} over the last three years.
With transportation battery demand expected to jump 40-fold by 2040, vanadium could be poised for significant inroads in the EV market. All those new EVs on the road could require charging stations to “fuel up”, and vanadium redox batteries offer a perfect solution as VRB’s can simultaneously charge 50 cars at a time.
