Ann: TNG signs strategic HoA with BBI Group, page-251

Propunter2, what I'm hearing hear is confirmation that salt roasting extracts one resource to the exclusion of the other two. For that reason it has been used successfully in the extraction of the by products of iron etc in resulting slag or fly ash. In those cases the primary target iron was previously extracted to a commercial level leaving the bi product for vanadium extraction.

Primary vanadium mines are new. Largo was the first in some 30 years and Bushveld Minerals take over of Everaz redundant bi product refinery for application on their co partners prospect mine would probably be the second or third. There are no others at this time.

None use a hydro metallurgical process and to my knowledge their operations focus on vanadium pentoxide or ferrovanadium recovery. They have become profitable in recent times due to surging prices and last time I looked Largos cost of production was under $4.00/lb. Bushveld were selling a ferovandium compound for moon beams into Europe (I can get the update figures if needed) but were still looking for continued stability at current prices before considering development of their own Tenure and also require licencing. So the road under traditional methods is anecdotally uncertain and there are few examples of success for primary V mines. Windimura appears a classic e.g. of failure although something may come of it under more favourable environment.

By contrast TIVAN in 2015 pilot run managed extraxtion and purity rates of circa;
V 93% recovery 99% purity
Ti 90% recovery 65% purity
Iron ?? Recovery 99% purity.

Since then the titanium purity has been increased to over 80% for direct application in pigment plant.

Production costs for v2o5 remains at c $2.50/lb.

The real issue or resistance for development appears to be CAPEX, traditional at c $300 to $600 mill, TIVAN mine and refinery c $870 mill. Also there might be some additional enviro hurdles to jump with high scrutiny on titanium pigment processing getting a bit of focus.

There must be strong commercial and environmental reasons resulting in Chinas change in focus from traditional pyro extraction to trying to develop hydro extraction processes. Also most of the other titomagnetite resource projects are attempting to develop their own hydro recovery processes.

My money still sits with SMS backing TNG/TIVAN. The HoA with BBI adds comfort to that view. Todd Corp seem to play a long game. Their board is extremely experienced and their subsidiarity BBI appears to have followed through with every agreement entered into in the Pilbara /Balla Balla development to date.

It's worth a replay of the 22 August 2017 BBR, talks of the aplication of TIVAN at 1.55 "capable of any user of recoveries of high purity products" at 5.57 goes into what happening at various pkaces and times with no specifics, when PB mentions wnat is happening in Sydney snd Perth in the naxt week is it a reference to negotiations with BBI? Quit possibly.

Every one will make their own minds up but I'm buoyed by LM77s post of 16 June. I think all is well