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Market:	ASX 200
Sector:	Investments and Funds
EPIC:	XJO

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Australia Market Wrap

Proactive Investors brings you a summary of some of the major stories on the Australian Securities Exchange.

Vanadium demand on the rise

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 by Proactive Investors

Ferrovanadium was trading between $12.50 to $13 per pound from $12.25 to $12.75 previously, on the back of improved steel mill buying, while vanadium pentoxide remained range bound between $7 and $7.50 per pound. Coming on the back of a healthy correction from its huge January gains, this has brought some kind of cheer to the vanadium market.

The slide in metals was ignited by China's announcement on January 13, 2010 that it would tighten the banks' reserve requirements by half of a percentage point which is perceived as a sign of further monetary tightening creating fear that the Chinese economy will slow further cutting off global recovery.

Speaking of China, the MCC Overseas Ltd has struck a deal with Aurox Resources Ltd that promises to cut $233 million from the project development costs of junior explorer Balla Balla. Aurox has signed an agreement with MCC for providing engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services, and financing assistance for the first two phases of the $2 billion iron ore, vanadium and titanium project in Western Australia.

According to the proposal by MCC, China's leading mining engineering services provider, the project could be developed for $1.76 billion. Under the deal, MCC must procure finance to be eligible to provide the EPC services. Aurox said in a statement last Monday that a Chinese banking institution had provided it with a "formal indication of interest".

Last week, for a change, it was not the Chinese who dominated the information sphere in the world of vanadium. A wide range of vanadium news was reported from various spots across the globe.

Mining and exploration company NiPlats Australia (ASX: NIP) has received further support for the potential of Speewah to host Australia's largest vanadium deposit after returning the latest platinum, palladium and gold assay results.

The results came from the Reverse Circulation drilling programme on the Speewah Project, located in the Kimberley of Western Australia, with the drilling successfully enhancing the PGE+Au prospectivity. The Speewah Dome is a new PGE+Au discovery in Australia which is part of the Hart Dolerite large igneous province.

Since 2006, after the discovery of platinum, NiPlats (ASX: NIP) has been drilling the Dome to determine the extent of vanadium and other mineralisation.

Further infill drilling is planned for the Red Hill and Buckman vanadium prospects, the unexplored Sunset Flats and Magnetite Valley vanadium prospects, and the interpreted positions of the vanadium and PGE+Au feeder structures west of Red Hill, along the eastern edge of Buckman, and the fault along the eastern edge of Central.A$40 million market-capped NiPlat's focus is the definition and development of its vanadium- platinum and fluorite discoveries in the East Kimberly region of Western Australia. The tenements contain a very large vanadium deposit with indicated and inferred resources.

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