Australian Vanadium Limited (ASX: AVL) has been awarded a A$49 million grant under the Australian Government’s Modern Manufacturing Initiative Collaboration Stream towards the development of the Australian Vanadium Project near Meekatharra and Geraldton, to create an Australian green fuelled vanadium industry.
Managing Director, Vincent Algar, said the Project, supported by the grant, enables new critical mineral production through the establishment of an integrated onshore Australian vanadium supply chain for steel and battery markets.
“AVL is delighted to have been awarded this grant from the Australian Government. Our project will create hundreds of jobs in Australia and help to build the critical vanadium industry both locally and internationally,” Mr Algar said.
“We have developed an innovative and collaborative approach to building a fully integrated project, from mine through to processing and end use in the steel and battery markets.
“Our collaborations are allowing us to build a project with unique social and environmental benefits. We look forward to working with our partners to bring the Australian Vanadium Project into production and further develop downstream opportunities for green steel and the vanadium redox flow battery market.”
Mr Algar said collaborating to create an Australian green fuelled vanadium industry will enable AVL to develop the high-grade Australian Vanadium Project in Western Australia. The Project consists of an open cut mine and a crushing, milling and beneficiation plant (CMB) south of Meekatharra and a vanadium pentoxide processing plant located near Geraldton.
Vanadium is on the critical metal list in many countries, including Australia, the United States, Japan and many European countries. It is used in critical aerospace and chemical applications, is a key component in high strength and specialty steel products and has an important and growing use in long duration, safe energy storage applications.
Collaboration
Working with ATCO to incorporate green hydrogen into the Project will fuel the processing of vanadium to a >99.9% pure V2O5 product, suitable for the critical mineral and battery markets. The V2O5 will subsequently be processed into vanadium electrolyte to fill vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) at the AVL vanadium electrolyte manufacturing plant.
AVL’s vanadium electrolyte manufacturing plant is currently being built in Kwinana, Western Australia. The plant is partly funded through the Australian Government’s Resources Technology and Critical Minerals Processing National Manufacturing Priority Roadmap.
Through AVL’s 100% owned battery subsidiary VSUN Energy, VRFBs will be installed in industries from agriculture and mining, through to residential energy storage and charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. By establishing manufacturing capabilities across both critical minerals and recycling as well as clean energy within Australia, AVL’s collaborative project will create hundreds of jobs, whilst enabling technologically driven solutions towards a low carbon economy.
Working with Bryah Resources, AVL intends to explore the opportunity to process an economic critical battery mineral resource from what was previously a waste stream at the Project. A tailings stream from AVL’s CMB circuit contains sulphides and the base metals cobalt, nickel, copper and gold. This collaboration will provide further downstream critical and battery mineral processing capabilities.
AVL’s business to research collaborations as part of the grant include Curtin University, Queensland University of Technology and Australian Nuclear Science and Technology (ANSTO), enabling AVL to further improve the manufacturing process for high purity vanadium and vanadium electrolytes. AVL is an associate participant in the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre (FBICRC) and is contributing to their activities.
Critical Mineral Strategy
AVL’s Project is directly aligned with Australia’s Critical Minerals Strategy (2019). There are no currently operating vanadium mines in Australia, despite having the third largest economic vanadium reserves globally. AVL is well positioned for partnerships and offtake agreements with countries that are seeking a secure ultra-high purity vanadium supply required for VRFBs, specialty chemicals, aerospace and defence.
The company will now work with the Australian Government to finalise the legal agreement for the grant, with associated terms and conditions to be agreed upon.
For further information please visit: https://www.australianvanadium.com.au/
