Neometals, an Australian battery materials producer, has announced plans to increase its stake in the joint venture vehicle Recycling Industries Scandinavia AB (RISAB) that is developing the Vanadium recovery project in Finland.
Neometals through its subsidiary Ecometals plans to acquire an additional 22.5% stake in RISAB, bringing its total equity to 72.5%. With this stake, Neometals will become the controlling shareholder in the project.
The stake will be purchased from Critical Metals, the other partner in the joint venture, whose equity will now drop from 50% to 27.5%.
Neometals said that it was entitled to the additional stake after converting A$300,000 loan, following Critical’s contribution of the same amount.
The change in ownership of RISAB was considered in the shareholders’ agreement and was mentioned in Neometals’ ASX announcement last month.
The two companies are yet to take final investment decision (FID) to build a facility in Pori, Finland, where high-purity vanadium pentoxide will be processed and recovered, from the slag generated by SSAB in Scandinavia.
Avanti Materials, a subsidiary of Neometals has licensed its vanadium recovery processing flowsheet technology (VRP technology) to RISAB, for the project.
The JV also has a second partnership to use the VRP technology elsewhere in Scandinavia at H2Green Steel feedstock, Boden, Sweden.
Neometals and Critical are progressing with both equity and debt financing, to arrive at final investment decision (FID) in June, this year.
Last month, RISAB advanced the vanadium recovery project in Finland, to formal appraisal stage with the European Investment Bank (EIB).
The VRP would process steelmaking by-product which is presently being stockpiles and its recycling nature will help avoid upstream mining costs or associated operating risks.
The project is also expected to support circular economy and will reduce the primary usage of resources for vanadium manufacturing.
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