Member Info for Alfacomp

Ozric - the problem is not the Vanadium in the ground it is the hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new vanadium processing plant. For a long time IRON were trying to persuade someone else to stump up the cash to build a iron smelter that they might be able to get some vanadium rich sl-a-g (typically maybe 20% V) out of but that still would have left the final processing to be done by someone like, you've guessed it, Vanchem.

Smelting ore to make iron just to get a little bit of Vanadium out is an even more expensive way of producing Vanadium than a primary Vanadium production plant - it only works if someone pays you for the iron. That didn't work out so well for Highveld and the world didn't end when they stopped making Iron in South Africa.

Ozric, just so you are under no illusions - there is an absolutely negligble chance of BMN ever having anything to do with IRON - we already have more than enough Vanadium assets

picku - here's a few starting articles:-

https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/vametco-mine-visit-407
https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/vametco-processing-plant-visit-408
https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/eskom-battery-site-visit-410

Things have moved on rather a lot since then, but it gets you started, when you've had a look at that come back and let me have any questions.

Picku - have you looked at TBP yet ?

you have no idea what you are talking about

yes that is right Lithium batteries DO have a limited life - thankfully you seem to actually be starting to get the message now.

note - this has nothing to do with batteries in electric vehicles, which they treat completely separately.

states 18 GW of battery storage capacity by 2035 (in the UK only).

Assuming a very modest 2 hour average duration for these batteries brings you to a level of 36 GWh of battery storage within 15 years.

Averaging this rollout over that time yields 2.4 GWh per year.

Or 3x Dalian's 800 MWh per year, each year for 15 years, just for the UK.

This would work out at over 13,000 tonnes of Vanadium, each year, just for the lil' old UK.

All in line with the predictions I made in the final graph here:- https://www.thebushveldperspective.com/blog/public-articles-1/post/energy-storage-europe-2019-415

Miagi - have you paid no attention to any of the previous discussion on this point today ?

Owning a VRFB manufacturer outright is not and never has been part of the plan for the company. Fortune's strategy is to try and bring other people and their money and influence into the sector, not to put up walls to prevent them coming in.

No doubt you think that is wrong in which case I wish you the best of luck when you start your own Vanadium and VRFB companies.

tell me why it is Helium-1 and not Helium-4 ?

all this theoretical talk of owning VRFB companies outright or not misses the point. Largo only managed to get Vionx for 4 million bucks worth of shares because Vionx was bankrupt. I guess we could have hung around until Enerox and Avalon and RedT went bankrupt also but that would have risked a number of things :-

1) someone else getting them
2) the people in those companies saying "right I'm off, sod this for a lark"

Fortune's plan has alway been to support as the entire VRFB industry as much as possible. Sometimes this means being selective, but the plan is that the door is always open. As soon as you own a VRFB business outright then the presumption that any other VRFB maker will make is that they are either going to have their IP or business stolen or their best prospects pinched.

jogj99 - well you better get used to being niggled because that is not their plan

not in Brazil they are not.

Largo Clean Energy is simply a rebadged Vionx, without the liabilities of the previous attempt they had.

The situation is no different to Enerox, if you were to stick a label 'Bushveld Clean Energy' on the side of their Austrian building.

ahhh yes I recall he was around last year - what was the exact name again ?

South Africa better than China, Brazil and that powerhouse of unrequited Vanadium production Kazahkstan

no it doesn't work like that you idiot.

If you are paying someone a backhander you do not effing publish it in an RNS - the involvement of the IDC is 110% above board and is the right way to involve the South African government.

oh dear Drifter you really cannot bring yourself to ever be positive can you ?

The huge political importance of the IDC involvement will no doubt become obvious when the results of the Eskom tenders are published.

The VRFB is not currently 20% of the energy storage market so that mean that it would need to increase about 1000 fold to capture the 20% of energy storage market.

There is little risk from competitors if the market needs to expand 122-fold

I agree - it has been clear to both myself and Gambit when we attended multiple Vanitec meetings back in 2018 that both Fortune and Alberto (Arias - main shareholder in Largo) have been singing from similar songsheets as far as VRFBs and the need for vertical integration within the industry.