What are we looking at?25 Jan 2019 13:43
This article dates back to June last year:
"With falling output of vanadium in China, the world’s largest producer, there was interest from buyers in the country to fund the Mokopane project, Mojapelo said. But the focus remained on Vametco where for $100m, just one third the cost of building a new Mokopane project, output could be doubled to 10,000 tonnes a year, a decision the board had yet to make, he said.
Considering the market needed 92,000 tonnes of vanadium a year, this would make Bushveld an increasingly important player in the sector.
Bushveld is the third-largest source of primary vanadium, behind Largo Resources in Brazil and Glencore’s Rhovan operation in SA. Its production is less than 5% of its resource at Vametco and Bushveld is increasing exploration around its mine for more.
While vanadium demand from the steel sector was the anchor for the mineral, real growth lay in energy storage, the one Bushveld was aggressively targeting, Mojapelo said.
The Eskom battery project, using US technology and which is expected to be commissioned in August 2018, was just one area Bushveld was investing in, with a second $10m investment along with the Industrial Development Corporation in the production of vanadium electrolytes from 2019 for other battery makers to use. The electrolytes business would comprise factories in Brits and East London and they would eventually make batteries locally, using more than 80% of local content.
The vanadium battery at a power utility like Eskom meant that it could better control peak and off-peak power supplies, which had positive cost implications, Mojapelo said."
I think we can safely say that the board will push this investment forward in 2019 as we need this capacity in 2020 for market growth and our electrolyte plant in East London, SA.
Cheers, RK
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