[Ferro-Alloys.com] The Australian Vanadium project in Western Australia continues to grow in stature after Bryah Resources announced a 15 per cent increase in the base metal mineral resource.

The indicated and inferred mineral resource of the Australian Vanadium project deposit, which is located within Bryah’s Gabanintha project, has increased from 31.3 million tonnes to 36 million tonnes at 766 parts per million (ppm) nickel, 212 ppm copper and 231 ppm cobalt.

While Australian Vanadium (AVL) holds the rights to vanadium, titanium, iron ore, cobalt, chromium, uranium, lithium, tantalum and manganese at the project, Bryah owns the rights to any other minerals discovered.

Australian Vanadium also holds a 4.8 per cent share in Bryah, which was trading at $0.046 at the time of writing with a market capitalisation of $9.36 million.

Both companies are working together to maximise the recovery of metals from the vanadium-titanium-magnetite (VTM) deposit, with Bryah taking the lead on further studies relating to the base metal recovery circuit.

The collaboration has been supported by a $49 million grant Australian Vanadium awarded through the Modern Manufacturing Initiative (MMI) in March.

“With AVL progressing strongly toward vanadium production, completing the BFS (bankable feasibility study) and being granted a $49 million grant from the government, Bryah also comes a step closer to realising value in its mineral rights,” Bryah chief executive officer Ashley Jones said.

“Metallurgical test work from 2018 and 2022 indicate that a significant non-magnetic nickel-copper-cobalt rich sulphide tailings stream would come from the plant following magnetic separation of the vanadium-bearing magnetite concentrate.

“We know that the vanadium ore beneficiation process effectively concentrates the sulphide minerals in the tail, enabling further concentration by flotation methods.”

As outlined in the BFS, Australian Vanadium expects its namesake project to produce 24.7 million pounds of vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) per annum as a 99.5 per cent high-purity flake, and 900,000 dry tonnes per annum of iron-titanium (FeTi) by-product.

The project has an expected mine life of 25 years.

• [Editor:tianyawei]