Neometals has extended a deal with Scandinavian-focused battery metals producer Critical Metals to finalise a new slag supply deal with Nordic steelmaker SSAB from the company’s proposed vanadium recovery plant in Finland.
The extension until 28 February, 2023 gives the parties time to process documentation for higher volumes of slag supply to SSAB inked in a memorandum of understanding in late 2022.
Neometals is also progressing a 50 per cent ownership and technology licensing deal for Critical Metals’ vanadium recovery project special purpose vehicle, Recycling Industries Scandinavia.
Securing the deal would give rise to a joint venture to develop the project that has been in the works since April 2020.
On its side of the table Neometals has reached into its pocket to fund studies to recover vanadium from SSAB’s steelmaking by-product, known as slag.
Recycling Industries Scandinavia is in high-level talks with SSAB to up its 2Mt supply deal and push the case for first refusal rights on extra slag volume.
Neometals says the recovery operation offers an opportunity to extract high-grade vanadium from slag without the need for a mining operation’s costs and carbon footprint.
Vanadium has traditionally been used as a hardening ingredient in steelmaking but is increasingly catching the eye of the battery industry where it is touted as having a lucrative future in grid-scale power storage.
The metal’s benefits over lithium-ion in such uses include favourable costs at scale, safety, longevity and consistency of power delivery over longer periods.
The vanadium market was valued at US$1.58bn by Data Bridge in 2021 and is forecast to grow to US$2.48bn by 2029.
Global industry group Vanitec in November tipped vanadium demand to grow to 300,000t by 2030, nearly triple the world’s current supply.
Steel slag currently supplies the bulk of the world’s needs, according to Vanitec.
Neometals in July revealed a study of its vanadium recovery operation placed it in the lowest quartile of the industry cost curve, pointing to a relatively low-cost project.
The facility would be built in the Finnish innovation melting pot city of Pori and potentially boast a zero-emission footprint.
Slag supplied from SSAB would come in at a reference grade of 3.93 per cent vanadium oxide.
With demand for vanadium in batteries on the rise Neometals and Critical Metals’ partnership could prove an inspired and cost-effective decision to supply the new kid on the critical minerals block from the waste of the old-timer, steel.
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By Matt Birney
