Tiny but vital metal markets rush to adjust to Chinese clampdown
A bigger clampdown looks set to have far-reaching ramifications for supply chains feeding American defense and chip-making industries.
Canada’s First Vanadium (TSX-V: FVAN) is extending its Nevada-based Carlin project, considered the largest, highest grade primary vanadium deposit in North America, by acquiring the southern extension of the asset.
The strategic move, announced Thursday, gives the company mineral rights to an additional 200-metre strike length of Carlin.
Strategic move gives the company mineral rights to an additional 200-metre strike length of Carlin — the largest, highest grade primary vanadium deposit in North America.
Six vertical holes drilled by Union Carbide in the 1960’s on the adjacent ground, known as Cole Creek, showed a southern continuance of the Carlin Vanadium deposit with thicknesses ranging from 10.67m to 28.96m (average 18.54m; 60.8ft) and grades ranging from 0.37% to 0.82% V2O5 (average 0.57% V2O5), the company said.
The news comes at a time of high prices for silvery-grey metal, used to harden steel and in the making of so-called flow batteries, which are long-lasting, durable and can hold large amounts of energy.
More than 90% of the world’s vanadium is currently used in steel manufacturing applications, but the metal’s importance to the energy sector is also growing rapidly, with more than 5% of global output used in energy storage.
Vanadium prices more than doubled in 2018, reaching historic peaks. Fastmarkets’ price assessment of ferro-vanadium, basis 78% min, free delivered duty-paid to consumer works in Europe stood at $126-128 per kg on November 23, 2018, the highest it has ever been. Year to date, the metal has averaged $76 per kg.
