in fact this whole line of vanadium deposits and the status of vanadium in western australia has been a tale of woe and scandal for the last 30 years.
1. There was the scandal over mis-reporting of grades at the Barrambie Vanadium Project when Ferrovanadium Corporation had it.
2. Coates Vanadium Operations went under in the 1980s, trying to process oxide ore (windimurra's initial attempt at operation also tried oxide processing)
3. The government sunk millions of dollars into infrastructure for Windimurra including a gas pipeline, roads and a powerstation. The operation failed, leaving western power with a nasty liability.
4. Xstrata were villified over their decision to decommission Windimurra and then bashed in a parliamentary inquiry. It seems some of the pollies and left wing commentators found it hard to accept a company's right not to operate at a loss.
5. The CCC exposed how lobbyists were involved in the alteration of reports from the parliamentary inquiry, and it appears the confidential reports were passed onto the company for "comment".
6. Continued statements about being a low cost producer, yet very little information to substantiate this claim. The website still states very low overall process recovery
Ore to concentrate = 67% Concentrate to Ferrovandium = 77%
therfore overall vanadium recovery = 52%
and we know fuel, reagents and labour costs have increased dramatically since the first failure.
8. How many people bought shares based on another ripper statement, also on the website:
"High quality, strategically located Reserve case capable of significant expansion - One of the world's largest high grade vanadium Reserves (20 year mine life)."
That would make the south african highveld operations with ROM grades of >1.2% a "super grade deposit" and the other local WA deposits with 0.6% to 0.8% head grade "very high grade".
9. Now we have a hundred million dollars suddenly vanishing between the dec qaurterly report and february.
10. Smith fled, Kiernan fled, Noble director fled etc......
11. I fear all of these episodes of vanadium infamy in additon to some unfortunate nickel laterite failures may have irreparably harmed the state's reputation and it could be very difficult to convince investors that WA is not just a state of shambolic projects and cowboys
TSL Price at posting:
17.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
