Vanadium is outpacing cobalt and lithium in relevance in the development of clean energy, said Ian Prentince, managing director of Technology Metals Australia Ltd.
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Vanadium Is Outpacing Cobalt And Lithium
Transcript
It's hotter than nickel, cobalt, copper and lithium right now we're talking vanadium. Ian Prentice is the Managing Director for Technology Metals Australia and he joins me now on the sidelines of the new Mining and Exploration Conference. Welcome to the program. You know you were a vanadium explorer and developer focused on Western Australia. Absolutely. There's so much buzz surrounding this this metal now. You know it used to be overlooked people didn't really talk about it but it's getting so much more exposure right now thanks to you know clean energy and battery metals and whatnot. So welcome to the program exciting talked a little bit about your project right now. Looking at some of the numbers recent feasibility study. Has it valued at one. Billion. Dollars. Tell us about it.
Yeah yes feasibility study just released and it's a very robust project. We're fortunate in that the very high quality of our body so operating costs are very low. The bottom end of the cost curve. So we've got a really high margin.
And for investors who are new to vanadium it's mostly used to hardened steel consumption that 86 percent was in the steel industry.
So to strengthen steel steel. But the emerging sector just talked about the. Energy storage batteries. And there's also a really exciting emerging industries especially Eloise in the industry.
So why is it outpacing cobalt and lithium right now.
So really interesting market dynamics. China has historically been the biggest producer biggest consumer we're seeing in China a very serious environmental regulation enforcement and that is restricting their capacity to produce. So production has been stabilised at this if not increased but the signs on their consumption These include developing these large batteries which is requiring vanadium they change in the amount of using is still increasing the amount of steel to be more aligned with North America. So that is also having a big impact. So it's a perfect storm for us. You've got a situation where. Supply is being. Reduced. Consumption is. Dramatically increasing. We're saying the process goes from when we listed three months ago about four dollars a pound with a long term goal is huge up there.
So now that you have this huge valuation in place what's next when do we expect you to be in production. So the next step for us is to do a definitive feasibility study to tell you a.
Little of detail so that's happening now. We will deliver that. That. May of next year and that will be the point for the first of the development. And.
The target is 2021 for full production. So is Western Australia known for her vanadium is this the hotspot for the metal. It is.
There's a number of deposits in Western Australia and I think Australia as a whole is probably on the USGS daughters is the fourth biggest resource in the in the Wolf. Another interesting thing there's no current production in Australia raisings so interesting. So would you be the first operating mine be probably the first maybe the second. And what's interesting the name vanadium derives from vantages which is the Scandinavian. Goddess.
Of Beauty. But looking at the metal it's not so pretty. So pretty so pretty but it might become really the shining star in the commodities complex. So are you really a managing director that's just Uber bullish right now.
Oh absolutely. Very bullish. We've got a really high quality probably get really good operating costs low capital in a market which is booming. So it's a fantastic opportunity for us and hopefully in the mining industry and what's been the reception like the new mining co-op we've had a. Fantastic reception. It's often said that on the Wednesday and we've had a really good response from the investors it's a really good job.
Ian Prentice thank you so much it's listed on the ASX. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you for watching. We'll have much more for you on Kika dot com.
