[Ferro-Alloys.com] Manuka Resources Limited: Maiden Vanadium Resource at Taranaki VTM Iron Sand Project

Highlights

-         Maiden Vanadium JORC 2012 Indicated & Inferred Mineral Resource of 3.2Bt @ 0.05% vanadium pentoxide (V₂O₅) declared for the Taranaki VTM (vanadiferous titanomagnetite) iron sand project

-         With 1.6Mt of contained V₂O₅ the project ranks as one of the larger drilled vanadium deposits globally

-         High quality resource with 65.7% of the resource in the ‘Indicated’ category

-         The titanomagnetite iron ore concentrate grade 55% to 57%Fe contains 0.5% V₂O₅ and 8.4% titanium dioxide (TiO₂)

-         At an assumed BFS¹ production rate of 5Mtpa VTM concentrate the annual concentrate production would contain 25Ktpa of V₂O₅, making it one of the largest aspiring vanadium producers on the ASX

-         Manuka will commission additional metallurgical test work to optimise the flowsheet for processing of the VTM concentrate to confirm economic recovery of vanadium as a separate product stream (this test work will be scoped to target >70% recoverable metal)

-         Revenue derived from V₂O₅ (either as co-product or separate product) and potentially TiO₂ sales would provide material by-product credits to offset already low iron ore opex of US$20 to $24^[i] tonne

-         The Project has already secured a 5mtpa mining licence (MP55581) with an initial 20 year mine life proposed with a bankable feasibility study (BFS) already commenced

Alan Eggers, Manuka Executive Director, and Chairman of the Taranaki VTM Project, commented:

“Manuka’s acquisition of 100% of Trans-Tasman Resources Limited (“TTR”), owner of the Taranaki VTM iron sand project, was completed in November 2022 and we continue to unlock latent value of the asset, yielding some impressive initial results.

The Taranaki VTM’s vast low cost titanomagnetite iron sands potential is well understood. Despite an awareness of its vanadium potential, the vanadium resource had not previously been estimated. The recent completion of this work highlights a very large resource in terms of contained vanadium making it a potentially material V₂O₅ producer of world scale.

This new work on the two critical minerals, recoverable vanadium and titanium, confirms the potential to further enhance the project’s robust iron ore economics with the prospect of its estimated US$20 to $24 tonne iron ore concentrate production cost to be materially offset by substantial vanadium and titanium metal by-product credits.

The completed PFS and initial BFS work have demonstrated a low cost iron ore concentrate production operation with CO₂ emissions generated per tonne of shipped concentrate less than half of other global iron ore concentrates.

With concerns around security of vanadium supply from key producing nations China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa, underpinning rising prices, we expect the vanadium potential of Taranaki VTM, along with its green steel low carbon emissions profile, to be of huge interest to end users – hence its critical mineral status in Australia, USA and the EU.”

• [Editor:tianyawei]