Bushveld Minerals to diversify with battery production powering ahead
Date: Jun 8, 2018
Bushveld Minerals, a company which is considering whether to join the Johannesburg bourse, is going to roll out a vanadium-based electricity storage device for Eskom as it diversifies its business risk away from being purely reliant on the steel industry.
AIM-traded Bushveld, which bought the Vametco vanadium producer in SA for $17m as the cheapest entrance into the vanadium market, is targeting the electricity storage market, moving quickly into the supply of large, stationary units, while supplying makers of these units.
Bushveld’s intentions to list in Johannesburg are unclear and its board has not yet decided on the matter.
SA is host to one of the world’s largest and highest grade sources of primary vanadium, which is primarily used to harden steel, with other supplies coming as a by-product of iron production.
Bushveld has a mine and plant near Brits generating 3,000 tonnes a year of vanadium, representing about 3.5% of global supply, and it is busy with a project to lift output to 5,000 tonnes a year, or 6% of the global market by the end of 2019 at a cost of R200m, CEO Fortune Mojapelo says.
