King River Resources Limited provided outline of company's vision for its 100% owned Speewah Vanadium Project located in the Kimberley of Western Australia. KRR's conceptual development plan is an open-cut mining operation scaled at 5Mtpa of feed to an on-site processing plant targeting production of a high-grade magnetite concentrate for export. The exported concentrates could then be refined overseas by salt and reduction roast methodology to target vanadium pentoxide (V2O5), titanium dioxide (TiO2) and iron co-products.

Resource: Speewah is Australia's large vanadium-in-magnetite deposit based on tonnes and V2O5 content. The deposit comprises a Measured, Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource of 4,712 million tonnes at 0.3% V2O5, 3.3% TiO2 and 14.7% Fe. The large deposit size supports a conceptual development plan for a potentially long mine life.

Mining: KRR envisages an open cut mining operation on the Central Vanadium deposit which outcrops, is fresh rock from near the surface, and has shallow dipping geometry with a low strip ratio of 0.4. Process: KRR's plan is to produce a high grade vanadium-bearing magnetite concentrate from the high grade (HG) zone of the Central Vanadium deposit, by crushing, grinding and magnetic separation. The beneficiation process can produce a magnetite concentrate with grades of 2.15-2.64% V2O5, which is higher than other Australian vanadium deposits. This important characteristic is due to very high V concentration in the magnetite crystal which reduces gradually upwards in the deposit.

Consequently, a smaller mass of concentrate could be processed to deliver the targeted V2O5 product. The low insitu grade of 0.3-0.4% V2O5 and the disseminated nature of the mineralisation results in a relatively low mass yield of about 13% into a magnetite concentrate. A greater mass of disseminated magnetite gabbro feed therefore needs to be beneficiated to produce a magnetite concentrate.

Staged crushing-grinding and magnetic separation optimisation tests on drill core samples are underway to produce a magnetite concentrate of high V grade, low in contaminants, and higher mass yield and vanadium deportment. Metallurgical investigations are currently underway by Murdoch University Hydrometallurgy Research Group to develop an optimised process flow sheet to produce high purity V2O5, TiO2 and iron metal, by trialing oxidative and reductive roast techniques, including the use of hydrogen as a reductant. In the salt roast tests already completed, vanadium extractions of up to 92% have been achieved from high grade vanadium- bearing magnetite concentrate.

Testwork is ongoing trialling mixed salts, optimisation of the salt dosage, and the precipitation of V2O5 product by the ammonium metavanadate (AMV) process. Research: KRR is supporting the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre (FBI-CRC) Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries (VRFB) Project.