Neometals has increased its ownership in joint venture company Recycling Industries Scandinavia AB (RISAB) up to 72.5 per cent as it moves towards developing Finland’s first vanadium recovery project.
The remaining 27.5 per cent of RISAB equity is held by unlisted Australian mineral development company Critical Metals.
Neometals, via its wholly owned subsidiary Ecometals, is entitled to an additional 22.5 per cent share in RISAB from the conversion of its $3 million shareholder loan following Critical’s $300,000 contribution.
The latest announcement follows a deal last month that saw the company take a 50 per cent share in RISAB. As part of that agreement Ecometals advanced $3 million to RISAB to fund ongoing evaluation activities. Critical Minerals’ wholly owned subsidiary Scandinavian Resources had until the end of March to invest up to $3 million to match Ecometals’ contribution to retain a 50 per cent share in RISAB. With its payment of $300,000, Critical’s holding is now 27.5 per cent.
Both parties are working together to evaluate the feasibility of constructing a facility in Pori, Finland to process and recover high-purity vanadium pentoxide from a vanadium-bearing steel making by-product (slag) that will be either generated or obtained by Scandinavian steelmaker SSAB.
The new ownership agreement gives Neometals control of operations of the joint venture and also allows the company the right to appoint the RISAB chair with a casting vote.
Last month Neometals executed a technology licence for its slag processing intellectual property to RISAB for a 2.5 per cent gross sales royalty and provided SSAB a guarantee for an amended feedstock supply agreement for the slag. Under the binding deal SSAB will supply two million tonnes of slag with RISAB having the first right to purchase additional tonnes when available.
The new slag supply agreement still contains the condition that a project investment decision must be made by 30 June 2023, but removes the requirement for the facility to be in production by 31st December 2024.
Neometals says the agreement also provides a reasonable basis for the finalisation and release of feasibility study results based on a 300,000 tonne-per-annum feed rate, incorporating updated data from the previously announced engineering cost study.
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. According to global vanadium organisation Vanitec, steel slag currently supplies the bulk of the world’s vanadium needs.
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By Michael Philipps
