Through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Australian Titanium (ATI), Battery materials producer Neometals (NMT) has signed a term sheet with Australian Vanadium (AVL) to explore opportunities involving the former’s rock titanium-vanadium deposit.
According to the non-binding term sheet, which is valid for nine months, AVL will process vanadium concentrate from NMT’s Barrambie titanium and vanadium project, which is located about 80km north-west of Sandstone in Western Australia.
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The firms will also share non-process infrastructure at AVL’s Tenindewa processing plant site.
With mutual agreement, the term sheet can be extended in six-month increments. During the period, AVL, Neometals and ATI will also consider signing binding agreements.
Furthermore, the parties will explore opportunities for ATI to build a low-temperature roast (LTR) plant near AVL’s processing plant site.
Australian Vanadium managing director Vincent Algar said: “The Australian Vanadium Project and Barrambie Project are the most well-understood and advanced vanadium titanium deposits in Australia.
“This collaboration will provide synergies, allowing the two projects to move forward even more confidently, using a mutual understanding of the ores and processing.
“The Vanadium Triangle in the Midwest contains many remnants of the once massive Murchison Layered Intrusive Complex, a Bushveld Complex sized intrusion, which hosts a number of potentially economic vanadium titanium magnetite (VTM) deposits.”
According to NMT’s pre-feasibility study (PFS) results, the Barrambie project could be considered for the production of an ilmenite concentrate and an iron/vanadium concentrate co-product.
The concentrate co-product is ideal for AVL’s processing.
Neometals managing director Chris Reed said: “We welcome the opportunity with AVL to investigate co-location, infrastructure sharing and the potential to supply high-grade vanadium co-product from our proposed mineral separation plant.
“Barrambie is one of the highest-grade titanium deposits in the world and can produce both a chloride-grade ilmenite product and vanadium-iron co-product from low-temperature roasting and magnetic separation of Barrambie gravity concentrates.”
