Surefire Resources hopes what it says is a “unique” high-purity alumina (HPA) deposit will lead to lucrative value-adding rewards from its flagship Victory Bore vanadium project, 400km inland from the WA port city of Geraldton.
Early sample results from waste rock surrounding the company’s high-grade vanadium deposit have returned grades of up to 31 per cent aluminium oxide. The grades are comparable to those gleaned from Worsley Alumina’s bauxite operations in the State’s South West.
Surefire’s most recent drilling returns show broad intercepts of 54m, averaging 23.88 per cent aluminium oxide from 40m, pitted squarely between its Main Lode and Central Lode vanadium deposits.
The discovery immediately prompted the company to appoint Queensland-based consultancy Lava Blue to start purification test work on samples of its aluminium-rich material. It has sparked new hopes of being able to produce a HPA product of almost perfect purity.
Lava Blue has already developed a proprietary process for HPA production, vetting its cutting-edge technology at a demonstration plant at Brisbane’s Redlands Science Park. That plant uses a scaled-up and modified hydrochloric acid leach process for the production of HPA from a variety of aluminium-rich materials and Surefire is optimistic its wholly-owned Victory Bore operation will run along similar lines.
Demand for HPA is gaining momentum globally, with the product finding a myriad of uses in the modern tech-savvy world as net-zero outcomes become increasingly desirable.
One growing market is spinning off the production of sapphire glass, an essential ingredient in light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The adoption of LEDs as a lighting alternative is being fuelled by a looming global ban on the manufacturing of compact fluorescent light bulbs, which is being slated for November this year.
HPA is also being used more regularly within ceramic-coated separators in lithium-ion batteries, driving further demand on the back of the surging electric vehicle market.
Collectively, market research forecasts a demand for HPA from the lighting and electric vehicle sector that is set to hurtle the product’s compound annual growth rate from 11 per cent up to 30 per cent in the next five years.
Surefire Resources managing director Paul Burton said: “The extensive high grades of Aluminium Oxide in the waste rock at our Victory Bore Vanadium Project make this stand out from other vanadium resources. If the test work is successful, this could potentially add significant additional value to the Victory Bore asset. This would further enhance this project as one of the world’s largest and potentially richest undeveloped vanadium resources.”
Surefire currently has its hands on 321 million tonnes at 0.40 per cent vanadium pentoxide at Victory Bore, including 16.8 million tonnes measured and 70.3 million tonnes indicated.
Additionally, the company has etched out a JORC-compliant exploration target within the vicinity of 682 million tonnes to 1.19 billion tonnes at 0.2 per cent to 0.43 per cent vanadium pentoxide – numbers which would lob the deposit firmly into world-class status.
Demand for vanadium has increased in line with the want for vanadium redox flow batteries, which can be used in conjunction with solar, wind and other renewable energy sources and also provide grid-scale storage.
Surefire is neck-deep in a pre-feasibility study on its Victory Bore vanadium deposit. If the results from Lava Blue’s HPA test work come up trumps, the company may have a very different set of numbers to present to the market on a potential multi-commodity play.
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By Helen Barling
