To develop some thoughts on vanadium you should read:
https://katusaresearch.com/the-hottest-metal-in-the-world-right-now-vanadium/
"Vanadium has incredible properties which increase the strength of alloys containing it, such as rebar which is heavily used in construction. China has just raised their steel rebar limits (raised the bar—no pun intended). Vanadium is also used in everything from jet engines to dental implants.
Here’s what you need to know about Vanadium
Vanadium is a small, niche sector. In 2017, global consumption was roughly 95,000 tonnes (209 million pounds).For comparison, in 2017 the world consumed roughly 23 million tonnes of copper (50 billion pounds). Below is a chart which shows annual vanadium consumption since 2007."
There are two main reasons why the vanadium sector has been exploding.
1.)"One of the main catalysts that spiked interest in the metal is new steel regulations that China will be imposing in November 2018.The new Chinese regulations are phasing out Grade 2 rebar which uses no vanadium in favour of grades 3, 4 and 5. Each of these new rebar grades requires vanadium. The higher the grade, the more vanadium that is required."
2.)"Utility scale battery storage with renewable energy projects are springing up around the globe.You can’t generate much in the way of solar electricity in the middle of the night. That’s why battery storage is so crucial to large scale renewable power. Think oil production before pipelines and rail takeaway. This is going to happen and will be a major game changer for electricity generation dynamics. If vanadium flow batteries do become a go to metal for utility size energy storage, it would open up a huge amount of new demand for vanadium."
But Katusa Research named also some dirty secrets in the vanadium sector:
"Just because the vanadium sector is small, doesn’t mean that vanadium is rare.
Vanadium is actually fairly common, and can be found as a secondary metal in many types of deposits. Most of these secondary deposits contain low grade vanadium mineralization. But at current vanadium prices, those marginal deposits become economic. Which opens up a plethora of new potential supply. This is very similar to the crappy/low grade copper and nickel projects which magically turned into cobalt projects last year."
My conclusion on the above: Buyers beware, don't buy crap !
That's why I hold Bushveld Minerals as my first choice (as producer) and secondly Tando Resources (as exploration play), both with very high grade V2O5
results in the same region/country.
