Bushveld Minerals (LON:BMN) has formed Bushveld Energy, a business focused on developing and promoting the role of vanadium in the growing global energy storage market.
The 84%-owned subsidiary's platform will focus on installing and promoting the use of vanadium redox flow batteries in South Africa. Bushveld holds a significant high grade vanadium resource base at its Mokopane project in South Africa.
Bushveld believes the energy storage market is at a tipping point and presents an attractive commercial opportunity, with vanadium redox flow batteries poised to take significant share in the utility scale energy storage market.
Bushveld said its subsidiary's business model would be reliant on smart partnerships that target large-scale opportunities for energy storage.
"Bushveld Energy is an important part of Bushveld Minerals' stated aim to build the most vertically integrated vanadium play in the world, leveraging its high-quality low-cost primary vanadium resources and an energy market environment ripe for utility scale energy storage solutions of the kind Bushveld Energy proposes,” said Fortune Mojapelo, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Bushveld Minerals.
“Smart partnerships in a large market opportunity mean we do not have to develop all the competencies and capacity required across the entire value chain,” Mojapelo added.
The CEO believes the diversification will open up new avenues of capital sourcing, which could prove especially pertinent given the difficulties mineral extraction companies are experiencing raising funds in the current environment.
“Bushveld Energy presents arguably the deepest vertical integration to resonate with the beneficiation and local content manufacturing aspirations of the South African government. Furthermore, it offers a capital-light pathway to cash flows alongside the mining and brown-field processing platforms the company is developing,” Mojapelo said.
While the company's vanadium platform has emerged as its main priority, it is not ignoring its other interests and on Monday morning it briefly recapped its strategy in the light of the recent acquisition of Lemur Resources.
The company has re-organised its operational resources to ensure that each of its three platforms has sufficient support, focus and capacity to deliver value.
Strategic priorities for each of the three platforms are as follows:
Vanadium – The company is focused on completing the pre-feasibility study (PFS) on the Mokopane vanadium project and envisages further developing the project in conjunction with a strategic partner.
As mentioned above, the company sees a strong commercial opportunity for its vanadium operations in the South African energy market.
Lemur Resources – The division will continue to focus on securing the independent power producer (IPP) licence for the Imaloto coal project, resolving litigation surrounding licence 4578 and securing a strategic partner for the development of an integrated mining and power project.
The Zaaiplaats tailings project will transfer to Bushveld's Greenhills Resources division, while the Brits vanadium project will transfer to Bushveld Resources.
Greenhills Resources - At its Mokopane tin project, Bushveld will focus on the high-grade zones of the two deposits, which its studies have shown can be mined and processed with recoveries in excess of 75% for a more than 50% tin concentrate product.
Greenhills will pursue a low capital expenditure approach, which will include the use of contract miners and locally developed modular processing plants, with potential to lease existing plants from third parties.
Shares shot up 12.7% to 3.1p on the news.