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Hi there I am a TTY holder and TTY have recently taken a 9.5% stake in WVL hence my interest. An article you may be interested in:


Big capital raising to set vanadium mining project on course
Perth-administered Windimurra Vanadium Ltd (ASX:WVL) has had several starts and stops in its quest to revive the big Windimurra mine in the Murchison mineral field of Western Australia and today?s announcement of big capital raising will move it forward.

Author: Ross Louthean
Posted: Friday , 04 Jan 2008

PERTH -

Windimurra Vanadium - until recently called Precious Metals Australia - said today it will raise $A54.8 million ($US48.27 M) through a non renounceable entitlement to shareholders on the basis of one share for every three held.

The issue price will be $A1.60/share ($US1.40) which represents an 8.57% discount to yesterday's 14 day volume weighted average price of $1.75/share. The issue will result in about 34.25 M new ordinary shares being issued.

Funds from the entitlement issue will be used to continue progress toward production at the Windimurra vanadium project and for working capital for Windimurra. As Precious Metals the company had been a secondary partner to Windimurra's original mine development by Xstrata plc, but Xstrata chose to shut the mine and take away the plant and equipment to focus on its vanadium operations in South Africa.

This caused a political furore in Western Australia and to resolve the issue Xstrata paid PMA some capital to allow it to re-develop the mine on its own. There were further ructions over the role of lobbyists and politicians in this deal.

The share entitlement issue will be underwritten by active Perth broking firm Euroz Securities Ltd and sub-underwritten by significant shareholder, Territory Resources Ltd which, with Windimurra Vanadium, has Perth mining identity Michael Kiernan as chairman.

Windimurra Vanadium's managing director Dr Iain Scott said the underwriting of the equity raising "demonstrated the market's support for the world class vanadium project."

The project is set to re-commission late in 2008.

The company said both Merrill Lynch and Hong Kong-based Noble Group, key supporters of the project, have demonstrated their confidence in the world class vanadium project by indicating their intention to participate in the syndicated debt.

Scott said that over the past six months Windimurra Vanadium has achieved major development milestones. This included signing of a 10 year, $A300 M ($US264.3 M) contract with Mineral Resources to build, own, operate and transfer the beneficiation plant. Windimurra Vanadium has also successfully gained the project's principal environmental approvals, and signed the EPCM contract with Proteus Engineers for the roasting and refinery sections of the plant.

Windimurra Vanadium has a strategic alliance and offtake agreement with Noble Group which has agreed to purchase the mine's total vanadium output, "at prevailing market prices for the life of the mine."

Originally discovered in 1985, the company claims Windimurra contains one of the largest reported proven vanadium ore reserves in the world with current mineable reserves of 79 million tonnes at a bulk grade of 0.47% V205, which will underpin an initial mine life of 20 years at the proposed mining rate of 3.9 Mtpa. A total of 148 Mt of resources have been modelled at a bulk grade of 0.46%.

Scott said that since 2003, world demand for vanadium and the price of the commodity have increased strongly, largely driven by growth in Chinese steel production. Marketing studies commissioned by the company forecast that vanadium demand will continue to increase through to 2015 at a compound annual growth rate of 7.8%.

In a separate announcement today the company said its founding chief executive Roderick Smith had resigned as a director. He is moving from Perth to London to look at new ventures.