douginil
3 years ago
Largo Resources Provides Operational Update; Reports Strong V2O5 Production of 3,260 Tonnes in Q3 2021
Oct, 20, 2021
All amounts expressed are in U.S. dollars, denominated by “$”.
- V2O5 production of 3,260 tonnes (7.2 million pounds1) in Q3 2021, a 5% increase over Q3 2020 and 6% above Q2 2021
- Total V2O5 equivalent sales of 2,685 tonnes in Q3 2021, a 16% increase over Q3 2020 and 11% below Q2 2021 due to logistical challenges
- Largo Clean Energy (“LCE”) selected to receive $4.2 million in funding from the Department of Energy (“DOE”) to scale up U.S.-based manufacturing of flow battery and long duration storage systems; Receipt of funding is subject to the completion of the award negotiation with the DOE
- On July 30, 2021, LCE received a notice to proceed (“NTP”) on its previously announced sales contract with Enel Green Power España (“Enel”) for the delivery of a 5 hour 6.1 MWh VCHARGE± system located in Spain
- Revised 2021 production and sales guidance: Production guidance lowered to 11,400 to 11,800 tonnes of V2O5 equivalent from 12,000 to 12,500 tonnes; Sales guidance lowered to 11,200 to 11,800 tonnes of V2O5 equivalent from 12,250 to 12,750 tonnes
- Demand in all of the Company’s key vanadium markets remained strong in Q3 2021: Average Fastmarkets European V2O5 price of approximately $9.40 per lb in Q3 2021, a 76% increase over the average in Q3 2020
TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Largo Resources Ltd. ("Largo" or the "Company") (TSX:LGO) (NASDAQ:LGO) announces quarterly production of 3,260 tonnes (7.1 million lbs1) of vanadium pentoxide (“V2O5”) and sales of 2,685 tonnes of V2O5 equivalent from its Maracás Menchen Mine in Q3 2021.
Paulo Misk, President and Chief Executive Officer of Largo, stated: “The Company remains well positioned to continue making headway on the suite of value-add projects in our pipeline. This quarter we received a NTP on our first battery sales contract with Enel and are progressing on schedule with the build out of LCE’s product development and stack manufacturing facility in Massachusetts with an expected annual capacity of 1.4 GWh. We look forward to a strong finish to the year and remain fully committed to driving the world’s transition to a low-carbon future through innovative energy storage solutions powered by our responsibly produced vanadium.” He continued: “On the operational front, our performance improved in Q3 2021 as highlighted by a 5% increase in production over Q3 2020 and a 6% increase over Q2 2021. The strong production performance during the quarter was largely driven by increased throughput and improved recoveries following the completion of the Company’s expansion project in Q2 2021. Despite improved production results and steady vanadium demand in all regions, the Company experienced logistical challenges which resulted in lower sales for the quarter.”
Read at:
https://www.largoresources.com/English/news-and-media/news-details/2021/Largo-Resources-Provides-Operational-Update-Reports-Strong-V2O5-Production-of-3260-Tonnes-in-Q3-2021/default.aspx
Slashnuts
3 years ago
Upward Momentum Builds In Vanadium Market...
https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2187258-upward-momentum-builds-in-vanadium-market
Vanadium market participants are becoming increasingly bullish in their outlooks for demand and prices, anticipating growth from both traditional and emerging end-use bases, along with price gains.
European prices for both pentoxide and ferro-vanadium have risen sharply in the past two weeks (see charts), incurring premiums to the fob China market that may or may not survive once the lunar new year holiday ends. Analysts from UK-based Alternative Resource Capital (ARC) and SP Angel expect duty-paid Rotterdam ferro-vanadium prices to stand at around $35-40/kg by 2022, which compares with a midpoint of $32/kg dp Rotterdam as last assessed by Argus on 12 February. Sellers are already pushing prices up toward that band, with offers lately touching $34/kg.
Europe's current price hikes are partly underpinned by tight supply, with a lack of availability from China and major European producers sold out until the end of March. But in the longer term, it is the demand side of the equation that is dominating outlooks and bolstering price expectations.
Uptick in traditional V demand
Covid-19 vaccine rollouts and macroeconomic improvements are encouraging vanadium producers to look to the medium term, with construction projects in emerging economies catching up to the vanadium-intensity of those in more developed western economies. As demand for rebar in emerging economies — particularly China and India — grows, so too does demand for steel with a higher tensile strength that allows for futuristic steel-intensive skylines like in Pudong, Shanghai.
Construction projects to prevent severe flooding along the Yangtze river are also a driving force for recent doubling-down on growth in China, reflected in recent operational updates by some vanadium producers. South Africa's Bushveld Minerals more than doubled its share of sales to China in 2020, to 21pc from 10pc in 2019 — equating to around 807t of vanadium last year.
SP Angel highlights a push to upgrade buildings and infrastructure in China's richer eastern provinces that is set to coincide with a wave of new construction projects in central and western provinces to modernise living conditions for most Chinese citizens. Co-production of vanadium from magnetite iron ores could also be set to decline as China's higher cost domestic iron ore mining firms compete with lower-priced imported iron units.
Batteries inject upside price risk
While the steel industry still dominates the vanadium demand base, growing attention is being given to the development of vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB) and analysts caution that their medium-term ferro-vanadium price forecasts might turn out to be conservative if VRFBs take off faster than expected.
Australia's Atlantic Vanadium is also upbeat on the outlook for VRFBs and its impact on global vanadium demand, building a 7,600 t/yr operation to sell 99.6pc grade material by 2023.
Atlantic expects the battery sector to account for 50pc of demand by 2025 — a rapid rise given batteries accounted for just 0.3pc of vanadium consumption in 2020. It remains to be seen if this would be feasible, particularly given market participants expect demand for vanadium from the steel industry to reach around 95,000t by 2023, which would imply the same volume for batteries and a doubling in global vanadium production. At an average greenfield capital cost of around $50,000/t, the industry would require almost $4.8bn of investment to close the supply gap if scaleable and accessible deposits can indeed be developed.
Canada's Largo Resources is positioning itself for a potential boom in VRFB demand and does have a scaleable and high-quality deposit to move forward with. In December, Largo launched a vertically integrated VRFB business — Largo Clean Energy — to "provide clean energy storage systems to the fast-growing, long-duration renewable energy storage market". Its VCharge± battery system is designed to have three times higher power density than others in the market and will be more reliable in production given its vertically integrated ownership structure, the company said.
Good Luck To All!$!$
nowwhat2
3 years ago
Just a small bit of Vanadium greatly strengthens steel (therefore less steel may be required to manufacture something - such as autos)
To explain…
Iron Ore = Steel
Iron ore is more integral to the global economy than any other commodity, except perhaps oil. Why?
Steel.
Steel represents around 95% of all metals produced, and used, by humans, and demand is growing. The basic ingredient of steel is iron ore, which is dug by mining firms, reduced to manageably sized pieces, and sold to steel makers, who convert the ore into various types of iron or steel through several processes, the most common of which is the use of a blast furnace.
High Quality Ore is Getting Harder to Find –- Enter Sintering
Historically, “lump ore” (literally rocks in lumps or chunks, from ¼ “ to 1 metre in size), was the main product fed into a blast furnace. However, the reserves of high-grade ore have been depleting for decades, forcing steel makers to turn to lower grade ore and processes to feed their furnaces, so the process of “sintering” was established.
“Sintering” – fusing particles together into one solid mass by using a combination of pressure and heat without melting the materials – has been the dominant process for some time.
Sintering Creates Heavy Pollution – Enter Pelletization
However, while sintering allowed the use of lower grade ore, the big disadvantage is that it’s a very dirty process that involves mixing low-grade iron ore with other products including coking coal (“coke”), resulting in what is considered the most polluting of all the steelmaking processes.
So, those mining companies over time developed the “pelletization” process. Iron ore pelletizing, or balling, is the process of transforming ore rocks into small and hardened iron balls or spheres anywhere from 8 – 16mm in size.
Most modern steel plants use a basic oxygen furnace to create steel. In these furnaces, oxygen blows through the molten iron, lowering carbon, silicon, manganese and phosphorous levels (steel is basically iron with reduced carbon).
Using iron ore pellets as packed spheres in the blast furnace allows air to flow better between the pellets, decreasing the resistance to the air that flows up through the layers of material during the smelting, and improving blast furnace productivity.
For this, and because pelletization reduces the use of “coke” (thus lowering pollutants), using pellets in steelmaking consumes only one-third of the energy that using sintered ore does, while also offering improved handling and transportation options.
Other benefits of pelletization include: uniform size, high metallization rate, increased permeability in blast furnaces to optimise fuel consumption rate, lower dust compared to sintering, reduced loss of product, mitigation of particle crushing and subsequent blocking of the furnace (when pellets are properly produced), and better in-furnace performance (pellets transfer heat better than powder).
It is in this pelletization process where PYR plasma torches are to be used to replace existing gas or electric heat burners.
Growing Demand for Pelletization
PYR’s timing in this area couldn’t be better, as there exists a number of key factors that are driving increased market demand for pelletized ore.
1/ The Increasing Demand for Steel.
Two of the largest uses of steel are construction and automotive manufacturing.
As a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, the construction industry was hit by a general freeze in consumption, shutdowns, and disrupted supply chains. The World Steel Association said June 4 it expected annual demand for steel to fall by 6.4% to 1.65 billion metric tonnes this year.
However, the recovery has already started, and demand is expected to be close to pre-pandemic levels in 2021, led by China and the rest of the global construction sector.
In the automotive industry, while steel has always been preferred for its stiffness, strength, and durability, which ensures safety and improves the way a car drives and handles, emissions and fuel consumption rules were tightened over the past 30 years, resulting in a move to lighter cars. While aluminum, magnesium, carbon fiber and plastic composites provide that weight reduction, they are more expensive than steels. And with driverless cars, car sharing and electric mobility gaining traction, vehicles need to be durable enough to withstand constant use and consumers need to be reassured that their safety is ensured. Thus, the demand for newer, more advanced, high-strength steels in the automotive industry is expected to increase significantly in the coming years, while the price advantage over other materials continues.
Higher-grade steel for use in automotive manufacturing requires higher-grade iron ore products, of which pellets are considered the optimum and highly preferred ingredient.
2/ Shifting Trend Towards Carbon-Reduced or Carbon-Free Steelmaking
Steel production has a number of impacts on the environment, including air emissions (CO, SOx, NOx, PM2), wastewater contaminants, hazardous wastes, and solid wastes. Greenhouse gas emissions associated with steel production are from the carbon dioxide emissions related to energy consumption.
Numerous governments have instituted unfavorable government policies related to sintering activities, the most important of which is China.
As China looks to surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy, China is dealing with an enormous amount of industrial-related air pollution. The heavy smog rampant in many of its major industrial hubs is having a huge impact on Chinese citizens’ health as well as crop yields.
As a result, the Chinese government is offering financial assistance and tax breaks to incentivize steel manufacturing plants to complete the upgrades required to meet the new emissions standards. China’s goal is to have 80 percent of existing plants make this transformation by 2025.
For this reason, and according to Reuters, pellet imports to China are expected to increase by 70 million tonnes over the next decade.
As with many industries, an increasing focus on sustainability has prompted producers to look at every available resource as a potential raw material. When it comes to iron ore, the pelletizing of “fines” produced at mine sites (the smallest pieces of rock and dust, previously considered a waste), as well as flue dust from blast furnaces, allows these materials to be integrated into the steel production process, reducing waste. This is especially true in production areaa like India, where the region’s softer iron ore sources are much more prone to breakdown into fines.
Similarly, pelletizing allows for the reuse of Electric Arc Furnace dust. Electric arc furnaces produce steel from scrap metal. The dust produced in these furnaces is a considerable by-product and can bepelletized for reintegration into the process.
3/ Cost Competitiveness and Industry Consolidation
Given that iron is the fourth most abundant element on Earth, comprising about 5% of the Earth’s crust by weight, global iron ore market is highly competitive and has dropped drastically at several times over the past decade.
Prices peaked at $187 per metric ton in February 2011, then plunged to about $41 per ton in December 2015. An oversupply of iron ore, combined with China adding more steel-making capacity than it needed, resulted in a slump in the iron ore spot prices earlier this decade, including a 47% decline in 2014 and a further 18% retreat in 2015.
Having access to low-cost iron ore deposits and benefitting from economies of scale, the big four producers BHP Billiton (BHP), Rio Tinto, Vale, and Fortescue ramped up production to meet Chinese demand, and the market went into oversupply – which forced higher-cost iron ore mines to scale back production or fold. For years, nearly all iron ore production in China was uneconomic under market conditions, and many local mines closed or were suspended, increasing importing (and consolidation) from the big four.
As a result, a number of high-cost iron ore mines closed or were suspended throughout the world in 2014, with up to 30% of low-grade iron mines shut down in China in 2014 alone.
Some experts argued that higher-cost producers fell victim to a strategy pursued by the big 4 producers of iron ore to drive the price down intentionally and eliminate competition. Accounting for more than 60% of global iron-ore exports, those iron giants have been relentlessly increasing lowest-cost production output.
As the economy improved, industry consolidation occurred, and a massive number of high-cost and Chinese mines closed, supply growth was lower than expected. This, combined with a significant infrastructure spending boost in China, saw iron ore prices revived.
In 2020, iron ore prices have risen back over $115. Having driven out smaller inefficient producers, the world’s giant iron ore companies (Vale, Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue) are best positioned to capitalize on a rising price environment, while also expanding into steel production for vertical integration. In fact, one of PYR’s announced pending contracts is with a pelletization company that is “also a major player in the steel industry”.
As stated above, using pellet ore in steelmaking consumes only 1/3 of the energy that using sintered ore does, while also offering improved handling and transportation options. Plasma torches are also known to significantly reduce energy output even further. PYR's role in ore processing competitiveness therefore is even more clear.
4/ Continued Reduced Availability of High-Quality Lump Iron Ore
Diminishing high-grade iron ore sources have left behind lower grade ores that necessitate concentration to be economically recovered. Through crushing, grinding, and various other techniques, low-grade iron ore can be upgraded and utilized in furnaes, including to a concentrate product in the form of a powder.
While powdering can be used, it’s not nearly as efficient as pelletization, and can cause problems such as clogging of furnaces. If processed directly, this powder would reduce the efficiency of the overall steel making process, including blast furnace performance; therefore, pelletizing is essential to process efficiency.
All told, PYR's entry into the field of iron ore pelletization represents a massive opportunity as the demand for ore pellets grows exponentially, and the desire for reduced environmental impact and cost competitiveness increases in step.
Bullsprig57
3 years ago
Largo Resources Announces Record Quarterly and Full Year 2020 Operational Results and Exceeds 2020 Sales Guidance; Provides 2021 Guidance
Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 7:00 AM ET
All amounts expressed are in U.S. dollars, denominated by "$"
Q4 and FY 2020 Production and Sales Highlights:
-- Record quarterly V2O5 production of 3,340 tonnes (7.4 million lbs1) in Q4 2020, an 11% increase over Q4 2019 -- Record annual V2O5 production of 11,825 tonnes (26.1 million lbs1) in 2020, an increase of 12% over 2019; Within 2020 V2O5 production guidance of 11,750 -- 12,250 tonnes -- Quarterly global V2O5 recovery4 of 80.6% in Q4 2020, a 4% increase over Q4 2019 -- Record annual global V2O5 recovery4 of 81.4% in 2020; a 4% increase over 2019 -- 2020 sales guidance exceeded: Total V2O5 equivalent sales of 10,260 tonnes in 2020, exceeding high-end V2O5 sales guidance by 260 tonnes -- Record quarterly sales of 3,751 tonnes of V2O5 equivalent in Q4 2020, a 31% increase over Q4 2019
2021 Guidance
-- V2O5 equivalent production of 12,000 -- 12,500 tonnes; V2O5 equivalent sales of 12,250 -- 12,750 tonnes; Cash operating cost excluding royalties2 of $3.10 -- 3.30/lb V2O5 sold; Total cash costs of $3.50 -- 3.70/lb V2O5 sold; Sustaining capital expenditures6 of $8.0 -- 10.0 million; Vanadium trioxide ("V2O3") processing plant expenditures of $7.0 -- 9.0 million -- Planned shutdown in January 2021: Implementation of kiln feed rate improvements to increase nameplate production capacity to 1,100 tonnes of V2O5 per month; Kiln and cooler refractory replacements; Planned preventative maintenance program -- The Company will strongly focus on the advancement of Largo Clean Energy and its VCHARGE+/- battery technology for the fast-growing renewable energy storage sector TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--January 20, 2021--
Largo Resources Ltd. ("Largo" or the "Company") (TSX: LGO) (OTCQX: LGORF) is very pleased to announce that it has achieved record quarterly and annual 2020 operational results at the Maracs Menchen Mine and has exceeded its 2020 annual sales guidance by 260 tonnes. Building upon the operational and sales accomplishments in 2020, management is confident in its ability to deliver on its production, sales and cost guidance in 2021. The Company is also heavily focused on the strategic development of Largo Clean Energy in 2021 to provide safe, grid-scale VRFBs to fast-growing renewable energy storage sector.
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