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TNG Ltd has expanded its strategic footprint in the announced partnership with SMS for the production of green
green energy sector by establishing a vanadium hydrogen energy.
redox flow battery (VRFB) business unit as part of Pre-development planning for Mount Peake is at an advanced
the vertical integration strategy for its flagship Mount stage, providing strong impetus for the Perth-based company
Peake vanadium-titanium-iron project in the Northern to progress its plans to establish a commercial VRFB business
Territory. unit via its green energy focused, 100%-owned subsidiary TNG
Energy Pty Ltd.
VRFBs use vanadium electrolytes to storge energy in support “The development of the VRFB business is an extension of our
of the wider application of renewable power generations, such positioning as a resources and mineral processing technology
as wind and solar, and are highly scalable for use in a variety of company, underpinned by the 100%-owned TIVAN® processing
settings. They also have long lifespans of at least 201 years and technology to be used at Mount Peake,” TNG managing director
minimal performance degradation. Paul Burton said.
TNG has previously demonstrated its ability to produce a
high-purity vanadium electrolyte from the vanadium pentoxide “The potential development of VRFBs using Mount Peake’s
generated in pilot-scale test work using material from Mount vanadium electrolyte, together with the recent agreement signed
Peake, about 235km north of Alice Springs. This work was with SMS to develop a hydrogen production technology, marks
completed in conjunction with engineering partner SMS Group in another step towards realising our strategic vision of establishing
2016. TNG as a sustainable resources company and providing
maximum benefit to our shareholders.”
Since then, TNG has continued to evaluate the green energy
market and the potential for VRFB use, while also advancing Burton said his company would also evaluate the potential spin-off
other initiatives aimed at moving to green energy and carbon of TNG Energy to maximise shareholder value.
neutral operations across the business. This includes a recently

committed to product
are progressing in a
timely manner.
“We think if we can
get 70-80% of our
product into binding
offtakes, then that will
be a really good out-
come for us,” Prentice
said.
The major carrot
dangling in front of
TMT on the offtake
Batteries is a fast-growing sector for vanadium despite only accounting for 1% of total end-use market
side appears to be in
the emerging battery
32% increase in the reserve base which now TMT has engaged FLSmidth as the pre- space where vanadium has been earmarked
stands at 39mt @ 0.9% vanadium pentoxide. ferred supplier of the roasting kiln section as a key ingredient in energy storage prod-
A maiden reserve of 9.4mt @ 0.97% va- for the Gabanintha processing plant and ucts. However, it is yet to enjoy the same
nadium pentoxide was also announced for Prentice believes that group’s longstanding price runs as other battery inputs such as
Yarrabubba. relationship with Danish export credit agency graphite, lithium, cobalt and nickel have over
Based on this reserve upgrade, Gabanin- EKF will have flow-on benefits for his com- the past five or so years.
tha’s projected life-of-mine operating sched- pany. “The base case is we deliver into the [stain-
ule was extended from 16 years predicted in A gas transportation agreement has also less] steel market and we can make a really
the DFS to 22.5 years, assuming a produc- been executed with APA Group for the devel- good project for just that traditional market,
tion rate of 13,000 tpa vanadium pentoxide. opment of a circa 152km pipeline to supply but the real opportunity for growth and I
“Post DFS we had a little bit of the feed- gas to Gabanintha from the Perth Basin. This guess certainty around that longer term mar-
back that a 20-year mine life would enable us option is significantly cheaper than what was ket is going to be in the energy storage side
to get a longer tenor of debt with some of the previously estimated in the DFS. of things,” Prentice said.
financiers we were talking to,” Prentice said. “It’s probably the closest point to any ex- “From some of the conversations I’m hav-
“We’ve got that longevity there now. It’s still isting infrastructure so it means the cost of ing with counterparties in that space, the am-
only 30-odd million tonnes out of our 137mt building a gas pipeline is going to be effec- bitions within the vanadium redox flow sector
resource, so there’s still plenty of scope to go tively the cheapest it can possibly be for us,” are enormous and the amount of vanadium
much longer than that, but as far as being in Prentice said. they’re talking about needing over the course
a position to be funding a project, having a “You pay for that transportation service of this decade, compared to the current sup-
plus-20 year mine life is a really, really impor- through the pipeline, so the shorter the pipe- ply of vanadium…we need to work together
tant starting point.” line, the lower the cost for the transportation. to make sure that our project is up and run-
Based on the outcomes of the DFS, Gab- We can see some really good cost benefits ning and feeds into that increasing demand
anintha will be one of the world’s lowest-cost from that tie-up with APA.” around energy storage.”
producers of vanadium pentoxide, with an TMT has also moved into the due diligence – Michael Washbourne
estimated opex of $US4.04/lb. Other key phase of negotiations with the Northern Aus-
financials from that study were EBITDA of tralian Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) around
$4.1 billion, pre-tax NPV of $US924 million project funding support for Gabanintha, while
and IRR of 34%. discussions with offtake groups not already

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