i was reading one of WVL's presentations and their discussions...

i was reading one of WVL's presentations and their discussions regarding data collated in '05 suggested vanadium had a small market back then of about 65,000 tonnes in production.

However, they noted that growth year on year was likely to increase 7-8% and that in 2005, i think under 14% of steel mills used vanadium.

Historically, vanadium is a very volatile commodity, there was a massive spike around 05/06 (the time this presentation was compiled) but the years before the price of vanadium was flat and cheap. After the spike, vanadium prices have cooled - significantly.

Whether NIPlats have a role to play in the steel market, the answer is yes. Vanadium is still required in creating premium steel products.

The question is what is the raging demand for it? Is the demand as bouyant as previous reports suggest even after a massive GFC and cutback on production costs? What is the growth looking like for vanadium and if there is such a great demand for this - who is willing to enter into debt agreements with NIP?

Given these questions, 65,000 tonnes in 05 is not a lot. Also the commodities historic volatility and subsequent price cooling raises a lot of doubts to the ability for NIP to get debt-financing agreements without third party agreements or offtake agreements.

WVL is now dead, well.. its being re-capitalised so that its 93million tonne vanadium mine can ramp up to production. WVL dying - not too sure why but has to do with debt and $$ is a concern if niplats doesn't get a big time player involved. But the positive is, if someone is keen enough to recapitalise WVL then there is definetly something worthy in their dirt.

I think this commodity and pricing its demand and supply forecast over the next 5 years will be interesting, hopefully there's more information out there so we can get a clearer picture as to who is on a winner.