Battery Metals

Vanadium’s astonishing rally is threatening its chances of being the next big battery metal.

Prices have surged more than 800 percent in about two years, driven by Chinese demand for stronger steel. There’s also been speculation that vanadium will become a key metal for the battery industry. But with prices now at extreme levels, it could be too expensive, according to Evraz Plc, a Russian steelmaker and one of the top producers of vanadium.

Steelmaking accounts for almost all demand for vanadium, an obscure silvery-grey metal thought to have been used in steel as far back as the Middle Ages. China, which makes half the world’s steel, is set to implement new rules next month requiring steel used in construction to be stronger. And that means using more vanadium.

That could be a big blow to the nascent vanadium battery industry. There’s been anticipation that vanadium flow batteries — the size of shipping containers — could be used to store power and help smooth out peaks and troughs in electricity supply. But that’s unfeasible with prices this high, according to Evraz, the Russian steelmaker that’s the biggest producer of vanadium outside of China.

“Vandadium batteries do have benefits, but for market purposes the current price is too high,” said Alexander Erenburg, head of vanadium at Evraz, which counts billionaire Roman Abramovich as its largest shareholder. “I don’t believe they will take off.”

Too Expensive

Ferrovanadium, the standard traded product, needs to be priced at about $30 a kilogram for usage in flow batteries to make sense, Erenburg said. The current price is about $115.

The rally could still have further to go.

“How far it can go, I don’t want to speculate about that,” Erenburg said. “Potentially it can go higher. The ceiling is not there.”

Although demand for nickel is likely to be boosted by the electric vehicle revolution, the timeframe could still be further out than some are predicting, with the stainless steel business likely to remain the biggest consumer, conference sources said this week.

Australia’s nickel industry said Tuesday that stainless steel continued to dominate the global nickel market, and will continue to for many years.
Addressing the Paydirt 2018 Australian Nickel Conference in Perth Tuesday, Poseidon Nickel’s CEO, Michael Rodriguez, said stainless steel was still a “huge driver” for nickel consumption.

This correlated with indications from the sector in recent weeks. Last week European nickel briquette premiums were heard under pressure in the face of ample supply and lower demand, with the ongoing EV story failing to boost sentiment following the annual LME Week gathering in London.

“The EV story seemed to be a bit of a dead subject during LME Week, it was more of a sales pitch last year,” said a trading source.

Stainless steel sector demand has grown by around 8% a year for the past couple of years, according to the producer’s estimates.

However, looking further out Rodriguez was upbeat on the prospects of EV demand for nickel.

“There is no question battery technology will increasingly involve higher nickel demand as thousands of scientists worldwide are specially looking at battery technologies,” he said.

The producer estimated that over the next 7-10 years the battery market will be dominated by lithium ion batteries for cars — with units comprising around 40 kg of nickel per vehicle.

“It doesn’t need a lot of maths to see that something like 300,000 mt of nickel will be needed to go into EVs within the next two years alone,” the CEO added, although a shortfall in metal is more than likely a decade away.

Also speaking at the conference, one analyst said 2018 would go down as the first time since mid-2012 that most global nickel production became economic on a cash basis.

“Margins have improved, allowing many mining projects to finally become economic, with annual consumption growth between 2010 and 2018 averaging 5.8% a year,” Carey Smith, senior analyst at Alto Capital, said.

However, Smith cautioned over a possible glut of stainless steel headed to market.

“With production now at more than 50 million mt/year, [there’s a] real possibility of over-supply,” he added.

Drilling at Nighthawk Gold’s Treasure Island project, about 11 km to the north of its Colomac project in the Northwest Territories, has served up significant, shallow high-grade mineralization.

The company was following up on several shallow high-grade gold intersections it had reported in 2011, and in the process has found new near-surface discoveries including a number of high-grade gold zones.

Four of the best intercepts were 46.25 metres of 3.31 grams gold per tonne from 117.75 metres downhole (drill hole T18-04B); 26.95 metres of 4.45 grams gold from 117.05 metres depth (drill hole T18-06B); 11.75 metres grading 10.78 grams gold from 132 metres (drill hole T18-08 B); and 18.50 metres of 7.37 grams gold from 164.50 metres (drill hole T18-03B).

So far drilling at Treasure Island has defined a 200-metre-wide zone of mineralization that extends over 700 metres in length encompassing both the main and east zones and remains open in all directions.

Treasure Island is the northern-most project on Nighthawk Gold’s Indin Lake property, and management believes the latest results suggest it has consolidated a “fertile gold camp.”

“The continued exploration success from our satellite targets supports our conviction that the Colomac deposit is not the only multimillion ounce opportunity, nor the only deposit capable of hosting high-grade mineralization,” President and CEO Michael Byron declared in a news release. “Our work to date on the Damoti Lake gold deposit, the four Leta Arm gold deposits and showings (North Inca, Diversified, #3, and Lexindin), and now Treasure Island, has confirmed that there are many higher grade prospects satellite to Colomac. We consider these targets as potential higher grade feed candidates that could augment any future mining operation at Colomac.”

Byron also noted that it is “incredibly telling and encouraging” that the company has only drilled near-surface mineralization, “as most deposits have yet to be explored below 100 metres.”

Nighthawk’s land position within the Indin Lake Greenstone Belt lies about 200 km north of Yellowknife.

Its Colomac deposit has an inferred resource of 50.3 million tonnes averaging 1.62 grams gold, for 2.6 million oz. gold.

The company’s shares are trading at 42¢ within a 52-week range of 29.5¢ and 76¢.

A group of scientists from Duke University has developed a new method to 3D-print lithium-ion batteries in virtually any shape.

In a paper published in ACS Applied Energy Materials, the researchers explain how they used an electrolyte solution to increase the ionic conductivity of the polymers used for 3D printing, such as poly(lactic acid) or PLA. This process allowed them to print complete lithium-ion batteries with an inexpensive machine.

Previously, only the non-conductive parts of a battery could be printed to be actually used.

Besides printing the whole device, Christopher Reyes, Benjamin Wiley and colleagues were able to give it many different forms. This means that manufacturers of things such as electric vehicles, cell phones and laptops won’t have to adapt their designs to the size and shape of commercially available batteries.

“Most lithium-ion batteries on the market come in cylindrical or rectangular shapes. Therefore, when a manufacturer is designing a product — such as a cell phone — they must dedicate a certain size and shape to the battery, which could waste space and limit design options,” the researchers say.

In addition to printing the battery, Reyes and Wiley’s team boosted the battery’s electrical conductivity by incorporating graphene or multi-walled carbon nanotubes into the anode or cathode, respectively.

For now, however, the capacity of the first-generation 3D-printed battery is about two orders of magnitude lower than that of commercial batteries, which is too low for practical use.

Thus, the group is working on several ideas for increasing the capacity of the device, such as replacing the PLA-based materials with 3D-printable pastes.

Vanadium’s astonishing rally is threatening its chances of being the next big battery metal.

Prices have surged more than 800 percent in about two years, driven by Chinese demand for stronger steel. There’s also been speculation that vanadium will become a key metal for the battery industry. But with prices now at extreme levels, it could be too expensive, according to Evraz Plc, a Russian steelmaker and one of the top producers of vanadium.

Steelmaking accounts for almost all demand for vanadium, an obscure silvery-grey metal thought to have been used in steel as far back as the Middle Ages. China, which makes half the world’s steel, is set to implement new rules next month requiring steel used in construction to be stronger. And that means using more vanadium.

That could be a big blow to the nascent vanadium battery industry. There’s been anticipation that vanadium flow batteries — the size of shipping containers — could be used to store power and help smooth out peaks and troughs in electricity supply. But that’s unfeasible with prices this high, according to Evraz, the Russian steelmaker that’s the biggest producer of vanadium outside of China.

“Vandadium batteries do have benefits, but for market purposes the current price is too high,” said Alexander Erenburg, head of vanadium at Evraz, which counts billionaire Roman Abramovich as its largest shareholder. “I don’t believe they will take off.”

Too Expensive
Ferrovanadium, the standard traded product, needs to be priced at about $30 a kilogram for usage in flow batteries to make sense, Erenburg said. The current price is about $115.

The rally could still have further to go.

“How far it can go, I don’t want to speculate about that,” Erenburg said. “Potentially it can go higher. The ceiling is not there.”

Fisker, an electric car startup founded by famed designer Henrik Fisker, announced that it received an investment from heavy machinery manufacturer Caterpillar for its solid-state battery technology.

Over the last few years, Henrik Fisker has been trying to launch a new EV startup under his own name after his original effort failed in 2013 and other companies took over.

Earlier this year, the startup unveiled its new EMotion all-electric vehicle with the claim of a 400-mile range on a single charge.

Unlike the first Fisker electric car which was dependent on a battery system from A123, they are claiming that they developed their own battery technology for their new vehicles.

Last year, Fisker claimed a solid-state battery ‘breakthrough’ for electric cars with ‘500 miles range and 1-minute charging’.

Now Caterpillar apparently wants a piece of it as their investment is reportedly based on Fisker’s battery technology:

“Investment aimed at Fisker Inc.’s future solid-state battery technology with applications in construction, energy storage, transportation and mining industries.”

The timeline to commercialize the battery technology is unclear.

Fisker has previously said anything from 2018 to 2023.