Mineral processing technology company Tivan (ASX: TVN, formerly TNG) has signed a deal with King River Resources (ASX: KRR) to acquire Speewah Mining Pty Ltd which owns the Speewah vanadium-titanium-iron project in Western Australia.
Total consideration for the acquisition is $20 million, comprising $10 million in new Tivan shares at an issue price of $0.10 per share and $10 million in cash by way of three staged payments including an initial $2.5 million payment at completion of the acquisition.
King River is the current owner of the Speewah project and had planned to initially scale it to produce high purity alumina (HPA), with vanadium, titanium and iron as potential co-products.
Under the terms of the acquisition, Tivan will acquire Speewah’s mining tenements, mining information (including previous studies and testwork completed) and all related intellectual property, subject to a number of conditions including possible approval by King River shareholders.
Largest reported resource
Speewah hosts the largest reported vanadium-in-titanomagnetite resource in Australia and is believed to be one of the largest on a global scale, containing a measured, indicated and inferred resource of 4.7 billion tonnes at 0.30% vanadium oxide, 14.7% iron and 3.3% titanium oxide (at a 0.23% vanadium oxide cut-off grade).
Beneficiation testwork on Speewah ore to produce magnetite concentrates confirmed the vanadium grades are some of the highest returned from any titanomagnetite resource globally.
Speewah is also considered amenable to Tivan’s namesake processing technology for titanomagnetite ore bodies.
Singular appeal
The quality and size of the Speewah resource — along with its proximity to the port of Darwin, where the planned Tivan processing facility (TPF) will be located — were recognised as being of “singular appeal” to Tivan.
Specifically, the board recognised that Speewah could “radically improve” the resource holdings of Tivan, and the feasibility of TPF project planning.
Executive chairman Grant Wilson believes the project would be a game changer for Tivan and for the global critical minerals sector.
“The Speewah acquisition is of enormous value and strategic significance to Tivan,” he said.
“Our extensive due diligence is consistent with a pathway for [us] to emerge as a significant global producer in titanium and vanadium, which are currently dominated by production in China and Russia… having a large, long-life, secure source of vanadium is particularly important to the Western bloc and is part of the impetus for a US-led ‘critical minerals buyers club’ which includes Europe and Japan.”
Other benefits
Mr Wilson said the acquisition would also benefit northern Australia.
“The implications for the northwest corridor, from the eastern Kimberley region to Darwin, are profound,” he said.
“Where remoteness and infrastructure shortfalls have [historically] frustrated project development, there is now a commercially-viable path which [puts us] at the forefront of critical minerals on a global basis, and will provide opportunities for northern Australia to lead downstream industries that are pivotal to the climate transition.”
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