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Ferro Vanadium 80% FOB (China) US$37.9/kg vs US$38.2/kg - Ferro-vanadium prices fell 3.8% yesterday to $25-26/kgV in Western Europe (FastmarketsMB)

The move follows a fall of 6.5% last week to $29.08-30.09/kgV.

Prices are being hit by reduced orders on the threat of recession in Germany and a general economic slowdown in Europe

We expect ferro-vanadium prices to pick up on news of further Quantitative Easing and regional economic stimulus plans which often involve the activation of local construction projects.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed-20-firms-third-carbon-emissions

New data shows how fossil fuel companies have driven climate crisis despite industry knowing dangers
Half a century of dither and denial – a climate crisis timeline
Why we need political action to tackle the oil, coal and gas companies - video explainer

The Guardian today reveals the 20 fossil fuel companies whose relentless exploitation of the world’s oil, gas and coal reserves can be directly linked to more than one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the modern era.

https://m.miningweekly.com/article/mining-companies-edge-towards-renewable-energy-options-2019-10-09/rep_id:3861

Mining companies are starting to heed the transition towards a low-carbon future by investing in wind energy, solar and gas.

This was relayed at the annual African wind energy summit, the Windaba, in Cape Town, on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Bushveld Energy head of origination and investment Peter Oldacre said vanadium redox flow batteries were becoming an excellent option in stationary storage. He foresees a huge opportunity for South Africa, which has the largest high-grade deposits of vanadium in the world. South Africa also processes most of its vanadium.

Oldacre said a project to demonstrate what vanadium batteries can do in a hybrid mini-grid space, would commission in the third quarter of 2020 which would give it an ideal opportunity to showcase its technology.

“The biggest difference between lithium-ion and palladium competing technologies is that lithium seems to have a better kilowatt-hour pricing structure for short duration cases, whereas palladium works fantastically well on a kilowatt hour basis once you use it more than four hours a day,” said Oldacre.

https://www.enca.com/news/livestream-eskom-explain-its-financial-statements-parliament

Northern California braced for mega power cut https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49982236

https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2019/10/08/why-you-should-bet-on-amg-now/#192f7cde3d67

Vanadium Vicissitudes

One key part of the story revolves around ferro-vanadium (FV,) an alloying material which is used to reduce the brittleness of reinforcing bar (rebar). These alloyed steel rods, which are less brittle than is un-alloyed rebar, make buildings more resilient during earthquake tremors.

Unfortunately for AMG, which is a major player in FV, prices of the material have collapsed this year in part because of a delay a change to the Chinese building code which would have mandated the use of FV-rebar. That regulatory flip-flop crimped demand for the material and the prices slid – down 69% this year through September 25, according to AMG data. China is by far the largest steel producer in the world.

In response to the FV price collapse, AMG had to mark down the value of its FV inventory to current market prices.
The good news is that the problem of FV inventory markdowns won’t happen again, at least for the foreseeable future, due to a recently announced deal which means that mining giant Glencore (GLEN.London) will now buy all of AMGs FV that isn’t already pledged to other customers.

The deal looks tremendous for AMG as it reduces the price risks of holding inventory and apparently came as the result of some lengthy and serious negotiations by Heinz Schimmelbusch, AMG’s CEO and chairman the management board.
“With Glencore we avoid being caught out with an inventory exposure that is subject to price risk,” Steve Hanke, chairman AMG’s supervisory board, and a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University.
Or put another way, AMG won’t hold much if any FV inventory, as a result there won’t be any markdowns to mess up the financials.
That’s good because investors tend only to look forward when evaluating a stock’s potential.
The deal with Glencore also reduces the company’s working capital, so boosting cash flow, and it lowers the commercial risks involved in marketing a specialty product.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bf74c402-e93a-11e9-b84b-ece3c04125d8#

https://www.miningmonthly.com/design-build/news/1372967/barrambie-to-build-on-back-of-china

Barrambie to ride on China's back

TITANIUM-vanadium hopeful Neometals has pencilled in a potential joint venture partner for its Barrambie project in Western Australia’s Mid-West; signing a memorandum of understanding with the Institute of Multipurpose Utilization of Mineral Resources (IMUMR) at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences to jointly work toward commercial production of high-purity titanium and vanadium chemicals.

Hopefully not a sign of things to come.

https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/1989762-analysis-ferrovanadium-prices-plunge-to-twoyear-low?backToResults=true

https://www.forbes.com/sites/charlestowersclark/2019/10/04/can-we-overcome-the-last-few-hurdles-for-renewable-energy/#c48782f559b7

https://renews.biz/55671/irish-wealth-fund-backs-gore-street-storage/

Ireland's sovereign wealth fund has agreed to invest almost £10m in two battery storage projects in home territory developed by UK outfit Gore Street Capital.

The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) has agreed to help fund two 30MW projects in Ireland that secured six-year frequency services contracts in August from domestic utility EirGrid.

The 30MW Portersdown in County Kildare and 30MW Kilmannock in County Wexford are due online by September 2021.

The estimated capex required to complete the projects is around £24m, 40% of which is to be funded by NTMA.

Gore Street's energy storage fund portfolio has a total capacity of 189MW.

”We are delighted to receive a further £9.5m of capital from our strategic investment partners, NTMA, as we continue to grow the fund and diversify our assets under management to provide further sources of income for our shareholders,” said Gore Street Capital chief executive Alex O'Cinneide.

IMUMR has a Chinese national mandate – ie, government backing — that includes “development of upstream supply chains for industries of strategic relevance to China”

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/stockhead.com.au/resources/neometals-taps-a-cashed-up-chinese-partner-to-help-develop-the-barrambie-vanadium-titanium-project/%3famp

Neometals has already developed a major lithium mine in WA, a rare and impressive feat for a junior-listed company.

To accomplish this, it partnered with big company — with deep pockets — to help with the heavy financial lifting.

Neometals (ASX:NMT) recently sold its 13.8 per cent stake in the producing hard rock Mt Marion mine for $103m. Now, the cashed-up explorer wants to do the whole thing again at the Barrambie vanadium-titanium project.

Neometals has just entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with big Chinese research organisation IMUMR to jointly develop the major WA project.

To be clear, these MOU’s are not legally binding — so when you see an MOU announcement in ALL CAPS calm down and just think of it as the ‘starting point’ for contract negotiations.

Neometals says the MOU is significant, nevertheless.

That’s because it outlines a potential pathway towards a 50:50 Barrambie joint venture, which will reduce the company’s share of development costs considerably.

These development costs aren’t small either. A revised feasibility study released in May estimated construction costs of $692m (including a 14.3 per cent contingency) and $2.5 billion in earnings over an initial 15-year life.

Although those numbers only included the vanadium, and not the titanium which actually makes up about 95 per cent of the contained metal at Barrambie.)

And it should also be noted that IMUMR has a Chinese national mandate – ie, government backing — that includes “development of upstream supply chains for industries of strategic relevance to China”, Neometals says.

IMUMR’s commitment bodes well for further development of the the Barrambie resource as one of the world’s richest titanium and vanadium deposits, boss Chris Reed says.

“China is the largest producer of titanium and vanadium chemical products in the world, with applications spanning titanium pigment, aerospace alloys and energy storage applications,” he says.

“Chemical producers need secure long-term sources of upstream feed sources with credentialed partners to undertake mining and beneficiation in first world jurisdictions.”

It is anticipated that joint test work and engineering studies will take approximately 18 months, leading to joint venture final investment decision around mid-2021.

https://www.energy-storage.news/blogs/renewable-unstoppable-five-and-a-bit-things-we-learned-at-spicon-2019

3. Energy storage-as-infrastructure - creating an asset class for the 'workhorse' of the grid

We’ve heard all about energy storage as-a-service, primarily in the commercial space, where batteries are used to help business customers cut their running costs, or to enable more renewable energy use onsite.

For the really big stuff, it doesn’t make sense to work on merchant opportunities, or multiple contracted revenues: echoing the thoughts of many that we heard from at the Solar & Storage Live show in Birmingham, England last week, better recognition of the role energy storage could play as an infrastructure asset could be key to unlocking not just the whole benefit and usefulness of energy storage, but also unlock investment in the technology as an asset class.

Andy Tang at Wartsila told Energy-Storage.news at the Salt lake City show that the key to doing that in the US is to encourage and enable more and more utilities to consider energy storage in their long-term resource planning. That’s already starting to happen, but as we heard on a panel hosted by NREL, transparency, quality of data and proactive planning to capitalise on the benefits of distributed energy resources (DER) are also vital assistance that the industry can bring to the table.

Longer-term planning also potentially means more long-duration energy storage projects could be invested in. Proponents of vanadium flow batteries, for example, would argue that without degradation in the battery stack after even decades of use, it will be easier for investments to be justified to ratepayers and financiers alike, while the show was awash with numerous long-duration storage providers. In terms of which chemistries folks pointed out as promising, most said just one word: zinc.

https://www.oilandgas360.com/cellcube-energy-storage-systems-inc-announces-proposed-transaction-with-pedro-resources-ltd/

TORONTO, Oct. 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CellCube Energy Storage Systems Inc. (“CellCube”) (CSE: CUBE) (OTCQB CECBF) (Frankfurt 01X, WKN A2JMGP), and for and on behalf of its wholly-owned subsidiary Enerox GmbH (“Enerox”) and Pedro Resources Ltd. (TSXV:PED.H) (“Pedro”)(collectively, CellCube and Pedro are referred to as the “Parties”), are pleased to announce that they have entered into a non-binding term sheet (the “Term Sheet”) pursuant to which, among other things, Pedro intends to purchase all of the assets of EnerCube Switchgear Systems Inc. (“EnerCube”) and PowerHaz Energy Mobile Solutions Inc. (“PowerHaz”), subsidiaries of CellCube (the “Proposed Transaction”).

Details of the Proposed Transaction

Pursuant to the Term Sheet, Pedro has agreed to purchase, through a subsidiary, the assets (the “Assets”) of EnerCube and PowerHaz which are comprised of intellectual property, patents, trademarks, equipment and commercialization rights used in connection with the production of large and small vanadium redox flow batteries. This is an Arm’s Length Transaction. Consideration for the Assets consists of payment of $1,750,000.00 of cash and securities yet to be determined to acquire the Assets (the “Purchase Price).

The completion of the Proposed Transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including all necessary corporate and regulatory approval, including approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange (the “CSE”) and the TSXV.

A couple of historical articles regarding the REIPPP, to back up BBN's posts, as always, very informative.

https://futuregrowth.co.za/newsroom/reippp-comes-of-age/

https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/renewable-energy-programme-attracts-r2094-billion-sa-economy

http://www.702.co.za/podcasts/297/absa-insights-2019/239611/how-south-africans-could-reippp-the-benefits-of-renewable-energy

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/10/01/gambia-plans-150-mw-solar-project-with-20-mwh-storage-option/

The government of Gambia and the Economic Community of West African States are seeking consultants to prepare a feasibility study for a 150 MW solar power project.

The government said it will ensure land availability, award permits for a power purchase agreement with utility the National Water & Electricity Company Ltd and prepare transmission lines for connection to a substation.

Banjul will also establish an auction mechanism for the project to reduce the cost of repurchasing electricity and permit independent power producers to have direct access to the grounds and infrastructure of the solar facility.

The Gambian government added, it has identified a 225-hectare site near the 225/30 kV OMVG substation in Soma which is under construction. The substation, in the center of the small nation near where the main east-west road crosses the north-south Trans-Gambia Highway, will be expected to raise the percentage of the Gambian population with access to electricity from 40% to 60%.

Grid services

The project, which may be coupled with 20 MWh of storage capacity for grid stabilization purposes, is expected to be built in two phases, with the first, 80 MW unit scheduled for completion in 2021 and the second, 70 MW section planned to come online in 2025.

The site’s energy storage capacity may be increased depending on grid needs. “According to preliminary estimates, the 150 MWp GambiaSolar Park will be combined with between 100 and 150 MWh of battery,” said the government.

The GambiaSolar Park will supplement two independent solar projects with generation capacities of 7 MW and 3.5 MW the United Nations Development Program tendered in April as well as 20 MW of solar capacity the World Bank is supporting in the Greater Banjul national capital region in the west of the country.

Gambia’s 2 million people can call upon only 102 MW of installed power generation capacity at present.

https://www.powermag.com/upward-trajectory-energy-storage-paired-with-renewables/

The growth of distributed power generation worldwide is increasingly reliant on microgrid systems incorporating several technologies, including solar power plus battery storage. The move toward more commercial and industrial generation, as companies look to control costs by producing some if not all of their own power, has brought on more microgrid adoption and increased the need for innovative distributed energy resource management systems.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/amp/news/903833

Technology Metals Australia Ltd (ASX:TMT) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to consider executing an offtake agreement for product from the Gabanintha Vanadium Project in Western Australia.

The non-binding MoU is with Chinese high-tech alloy producing company Shaanxi Fengyuan Vanadium Technology Development Co., Ltd.

Fengyuan is one of China’s leading producers of vanadium nitrogen allow with a production capacity of 10,000 tonnes per annum (tpa).

TMT and Fengyuan have agreed to use their best endeavours to negotiate a definitive and binding offtake agreement for vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) product from Gabanintha.

The agreement, which is intended to be finalised in the coming months, aims to cover 3,000 tpa of the project’s proposed 12,800 tpa average output.

Discussions also continue with other parties

TMT’s managing director Ian Prentice said: “We are very excited to have now entered into two offtake MOU’s with leading Chinese vanadium alloy producers over a total of 5,000 tpa of the proposed average 12,800 tpa production.

“Discussions with prospective development partners are progressing extremely well following the delivery of the very high quality DFS on the development of the globally significant GVP combined with the very high purity of the V2O5 product.”

TMT has also held constructive discussions with CNMNC regarding converting the standing MoU to a binding agreement.

Both parties are encouraged by progress to date and have mutually agreed to extend the term of the MoU until 30 November 2019.

August DFS confirms high-value, low-cost project

In August 2019, TMT released a definitive feasibility study (DFS) confirming its Gabanintha Vanadium Project to be a high value, long life, low cost technically robust project.

The DFS forecast the 16-year mine life to have a pre-tax net present value (NPV) of US$924 million or about A$1.32 billion.

https://investingnews.com/daily/resource-investing/energy-investing/vanadiumcorp-vrfb-facility-to-open-in-germany/

VanadiumCorp Resource Inc. (TSXV:VRB) (the “Company”) is pleased to announce its plans to open a vanadium redox flow battery ”VRFB” research and development facility in Karlsruhe, Germany, focused on next generation flow battery innovation.

“We are in detailed negotiations with potential manufacturers and end users. An engineering team of industry veterans will be led by our new Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Gilles Champagne.” commented, Adriaan Bakker, Chief Executive Officer of VanadiumCorp, “Focusing on sustainability and innovation for the last 12 years has led VanadiumCorp to what may facilitate the electrification of mobile applications such as vehicles, trains and ships. Innovation of the VRFB would also benefit the global energy storage market as it shifts towards long duration grid-connected systems.”

The Company would also like to clarify disclosure from September 26, 2019 published on www.batteriesinternational.com. VanadiumCorp has identified key improvements over current technology to increase the energy density of vanadium electrolyte as well as the power density of the conventional stack in a VRFB. VanadiumCorp intends to integrate vanadium directly into its own battery systems at a future date and is not currently producing VRFB’s. Further announcements regarding the future VRFB facility in Germany will be announced in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Vanadium Miners News For The Month Of September 2019

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4294118-vanadium-miners-news-month-september-2019