INTERVIEW
and carbon emissions . This has seen a gradual increase in the demand for steel and in turn vanadium .
“ If you can imagine then , that 30-40 % of the market is producing Chinese steel rebar and China is being told to increase its use of vanadium ,” Algar says . “ That ’ s going to have a very big impact on the market and AVL will be finely positioned to capitalise on that .”
Swinging for the fences At the time of writing , vanadium ’ s current stock market price sits at $ 10 per pound . Turning the clocks back to only two years ago in November 2015 , where the price stood at close to $ 3.50 per pound and the market upswing is as clear as day .
“ That really transforms the economics of a project like ours ,” says Algar . “ We have a high-grade project , a world class resource which can extract high volumes of vanadium . As the market begins to grow , that becomes extremely attractive .”
That high-grade , world class vanadium resource , is the Gabanintha Vanadium Project , located in Western Australia . Australian Vanadium has owned the project for a number
“ We have a highgrade project , a world class resource which can extract high volumes of vanadium . As the market begins to grow , that becomes extremely attractive ”
– Vince Algar , Managing Director of Australian Vanadium Ltd .
of years , owing to that low value commodity cycle , but it has always had one eye on a long-term ambition of developing the mine site to become a major global resource of vanadium .
When Algar entered the company back in 2014 , Gabanintha was already a well drilled site , and as the market began to rally , attention soon turned to new drilling programs in order to update the resource and provide a clear understanding of the mineral and
8 December 2017