Salt roasting for AVL vanadium?, page-6

Thanks for your kind reply on the different grades and metallurgy WangChung.

AVL shareholders may find some value researching the old newspaper articles on the collapse of the Windumurra/Atlantic Vanadium project to understand the truth behind the projects demise.

Atlantic’s salt roasting process at the project looks to have had terminal issues well before the fire that locked the gates.  

The project never reopened despite the successful insurance claim refinancing replacement of the damage.

The bleeding of cash problems seem to have stemmed from grade control and blending of high and low grade ores to meet roaster specifications.  Inconsistency in grade feed may have poisoned the roasting process and the project would then have failed to commercially produce enough quality vanadium product to achieve a positive cash flow.  

Atlantic failed to physically extract to surface enough volume of the significantly more expensive, higher grade underground ores that were needed to blend with low grade surface stockpiled ore, to keep consistent blends and volumes fed into those obviously energy expensive roasters.

Mr Harris may be able to confirm this, as his CV indicates he may have been at the Windumurra vanadium ship at the time?

Does AVL face any similar risks in the future, as   their ‘high grade zone’ appears to sit directly under all the lower grade material?  
See slide 22 below

https://hotcopper.com.au/documentdownload?id=uOMxKKzFkiWRTLKhOROKAxjvTDYC5Ai8wRmZoeF1ke92GA==

Is this high grade ore likely to be mined by AVL as an open cut or as an underground mine?  

Back to my key original question on this Salt Roasting thread.

Given the rather disappointing history of salt roasting in this Gabanintha Windumurra area, where more than one listed public company has expired, do we think the banks and the institutions will be willing to again put up hundreds of millions of more dollars back into a similar project that is still to be anchored around a salt roasting technology?

On face value, it may seem clever to pick up something for next to nothing from the rotting carcass of Windumurra, but given the increasing needs for high purit and consistent profitability, is it astute to accept a potential hospital pass before exploring the other new technology options?

Are AVL wasting valuable time money on a salt roasting prefeasibility?

TNG have recently changed tack and now look to be progressing their engineering studies on the new acid leach precipitation types of technologies.  

They should be able to recover vanadium, titanium, iron and acid products for sale.

Have AVL ever tested their ores on the TNG acid leaching types of processes?  I get the impression TNG are willing to licence out their knowledge and technologies.

Acid leaching works for every other metal commodity I can think of, so why not vanadium?

TNG’s global engineer advisor SMS Semag have obviously steered TNG off their previous focus of solvent extraction and more towards the new high purity precipitation methods.

There is very little doubt the high purity type of vanadium is what the world will be demanding in the future.

Important questions on the salt roasting

Does AVL’s current salt roasting process already produce the 99.5% minimum benchmark purity required for vanadium electrolyte in batteries?

Does AVL’s salt roasting process produce any high value, high purity titanium credits?

Do salt roasting processes produce pure iron oxides and/or high value acid credits?

If not, how can any new project relying on salt roasting be truly competitive into the future?

I think I might know some of those answers, but let’s make sure by doing some more homework and comparing our notes next week.

GLTAH