Neometals announced the successful completion of a feasibility study on the recovery of high-purity vanadium pentoxide from vanadium-bearing steel by-product.  

Neometals has a collaboration agreement with unlisted Scandinavian mineral development company Critical Metals to jointly evaluate the feasibility of constructing a recycling facility to recover and process high-grade vanadium pentoxide from vanadium-bearing steel by-products in Scandinavia. The plant will be located in Pori, Finland.

Neometals is the controlling shareholder in the Vanadium Recovery Project following the March 2023 execution of an agreement to formalise its 50% ownership in the Vanadium Recovery Project’s incorporated joint venture company, Recycling Industries Scandinavia AB (RISAB). 

RISAB has a 10-year slag supply agreement with Scandinavian steel giant SSAB to access approximately 2Mt of stockpiled high-grade vanadium-bearing slag from three operating steel mills. These are in Oxelösund and Luleå in Sweden and Raahe in Finland. The SSAB stockpile in Luleå is ~4% V₂O₅ and at both Oxelösund and Raahe is ~3% V₂O₅. RISAB also has the first right to purchase additional volumes of slag obtained by SSAB above 2Mt on an as-available basis at agreed prices linked to product grade and the prevailing FeV80 vanadium price.

The feasibility study envisages a 300ktpy plant (throughput rate) with capacity of 8,665tpy vanadium pentoxide. CAPEX is an estimated US$314.4M with OPEX put at US$4.19/lb. This would put the operation in the lowest quartile. The feasibility study assumes an average selling price of US$9.82/lb V₂O₅ plus a purity ‘premium’ of US$1.84/lb for 99.5% purity on product from 2027. 

Neometals announced that a final investment decision on the project was scheduled for June 2023, subject to finance. Construction is initially planned for July 2023, and operations are flagged to start early in 2026.

Project Blue expects the vanadium market to grow at a CAGR of 4.7% over the 2022-2028 period. Over the five-year horizon, demand in steel is set to increase, supported by HSLA output and higher intensity of vanadium use. Meanwhile, our base case assumes the continued commercialisation of vanadium redox flow batteries.  Our current projection is for 35%py growth to 2028, with demand to be driven by China.

Project Blue’s expectation is that the market could almost be supported by existing assets over the next three years, but that ultimately new sources of supply will be required after the middle of the decade.  This new supply will come from primary, secondary or co-producers, with both existing players and new operators looking to bring new projects into production.