Ferro-Alloy Resources Ltd (LSE:FAR) is adopting new technology at its pilot treatment plant in Kazakhstan to boost profitability while it progresses with the huge Balasausqandiq vanadium development.
Solution ponds have been expanded to increase the purity of its vanadium pentoxide product and improve selling prices.
Ferro-Alloy added it had also been stockpiling nickel-rich concentrates from the prior production of vanadium and molybdenum from concentrates.
New technology has been adopted to upgrade this 4,000t of residues to standard nickel grades to access further amounts of vanadium and molybdenum not recovered in the initial processing.
Processing of these residues will use the full capacity of the plant for several months, Ferro-Alloy said, with monthly production of vanadium and molybdenum expected to be only a little lower than that achieved from the treatment of bought-in concentrates.
Once the stockpile of nickel-rich concentrates is used up, the treatment of concentrates will resume, it said, with periodic treatment of the resultant nickel-rich residues.
Production of vanadium pentoxide during the last three months was 7% up of the first quarter at 87.6t with first-half output at 169t similar to 2023, though molybdenum output dropped 32%.
Nick Bridgen, Ferro-Alloy Resources chief executive said: "Current trading conditions are difficult but the innovative approach of our technical team to find alternative routes to profitability are bearing fruit and we look forward to seeing the results come through."