TNG and BBI Come Together on Vanadium Down Under

In a collaborative effort, TNG (ASX:TNG) has signed a heads of agreement with the BBI Group to see whether its TIVAN process can be used at BBI’s Balla Balla vanadium-titanium-iron project.

The Balla Balla project, located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, is wholly owned by BBI, a majority owned subsidiary of a New Zealand firm called Todd. It currently has a resource of 456 million tonnes grading 0.64 percent vanadium pentoxide, 13.7 percent titanium dioxide and 45 percent iron.

The deal also leaves room for the two companies to assess “commercial cooperation and synergies” between Balla Balla and TNG’s Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron asset.

According to TNG, TIVAN is a hydro-extraction process designed to extract products such as vanadium pentoxide from titano-magnetite orebodies; it also has the ability to separate titanium and iron as ferric oxide and titanium dioxide.

The company says TIVAN is unique because the entire process of vanadium acquisition takes place through a hydrometallurgical route that involves leaching and solvent extraction.

“As part of this arrangement, we will explore opportunities to use our TIVAN hydrometallurgical process at BBI’s Balla Balla Vanadium Project, as well as a number of other potential growth pathways,” TNG Managing Director Paul Burton said in a statement.

He added, “[t]he Balla Balla deposit is another exceptional world class vanadium resource and our initial test work has shown the TIVAN technology is ideally suited to processing its material.”

TNG has a binding heads of agreement in place with SMS Group for the design of a TIVAN refinery, and intends to use the process at Mount Peake, which is located in Australia’s Northern Territory about 230 kilometers from Alice Springs.

Mount Peake has a measured, indicated and inferred resource of 160 million tonnes grading 0.28 percent vanadium pentoxide, 5.3 percent titanium dioxide and 23 percent iron. It boasts a 17-year mine life and received federal environmental approval in mid-May.

The company says it is now waiting to receive a mining lease for the project, and expects to have that come through as soon as it signs a final mining agreement with the state’s Central Land Council. Site-based construction will then be allowed to commence.

At close of day in Australia on Tuesday (June 12), TNG’s share price was sitting at AU$0.125. The company is down 10.71 percent year-to-date, but is up 4.17 percent in the past year.

Don’t forget to follow us @INN_Resource for real-time updates!

Securities Disclosure: I, Olivia Da Silva, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.