The next focusIR Investor Webinar takes places on 14th May with guest speakers from Blue Whale Growth Fund, Taseko Mines, Kavango Resources and CQS Natural Resources fund. Please register here.
They do have piles of it above ground. They have to dig it up and process it to get the V. For every ton of V they have about 35 tons of iron ore, very roughly. They should have something in the region of about 150,000 tons knocking about in a gert heap.
I found this interesting: https://www.fastmarkets.com/Media/Files/PRA/FMV2/pdfs/Promotional%20materials/Understanding_the_high-grade_iron_ore_market_Fastmarkets.pdf
I presume our iron ore will be in the form of fine powder Fe2O3 (haematite) after the salt-roast process, possibly as a slurry in a lagoon / tailings dam.
We DO have a mountain of iron ore already dug up - it will be about 35 times the size (in tons) of the V we have shipped to date.
Our stockpile should be about 50 - 100 times the size of our Vanadium tonnage, based on 1 - 2% contained V. I'd have to go back through all the early JORC reports and RNSs, and shipping logs, to get any closer. As to value, I have seen prices from $76 to $250 a ton, so shall we say $120 a ton? Why haven't we flogged it? Maybe we have, or are about to. Maybe no-one has asked for any.
Fishy, from exploration to production could be as long as ten years. We (and Largo) are ahead of the game here. I have left a lot out, such as getting the money (100's of millions of bucks) to develop a mine or mines and a plant or plants... This is why everyone with eyes to see agrees that Fortune has played a blinder in acquiring Vanchem and Vametco.