Look through King River Resources’ (ASX:KRR) Speewah Vanadium Project

Highlights

• King River Resources (ASX:KRR) considers Speewah as the largest vanadium-in-magnetite deposit in Australia
• The company’s conceptual development plan is designed to deliver a magnetite-ilmenite concentrate for export
• The company eyes an optimised process flow sheet to produce metallic iron, titanium dioxide and vanadium pentoxide
• These products find applications as critical components for electrolytes for vanadium redox flow batteries, master alloys (Al-Ti-V materials), and titanium oxide pigments
• With the completion of a comprehensive technical background report, KRR has kicked off discussions with potential buyers and/or partners concerning the Western Australian project

ASX-listed exploration mining company King River Resources Limited (ASX:KRR) is committed to developing its fully owned Speewah Vanadium Project in Kimberley, Western Australia.

The recently conceptualised development plan is a step ahead in developing what the company believes is Australia’s largest vanadium-in-magnetite deposit in terms vanadium pentoxide content and tonnes. 

As per the company, the project holds crucial aspects that may lead to the targeted production of a high-grade magnetite concentrate for export.

The attributes supporting the conceptual development plan for the project as outlined by the company are:

Large deposit size: supporting a potentially long mine life

Data source: KRR update  

KRR plans to produce high-grade vanadium-bearing magnetite concentrate

The company intends to produce a high-grade concentrate from high-grade and low-grade zones. However, the operations differ as per the grade, as detailed below:

High-grade zone: The company’s strategy is to produce a high-grade vanadium-bearing magnetite concentrate using crushing, grinding and magnetic separation. It plans to focus on the high-grade (HG) zone of the Central Vanadium deposit for concentrate production.

The company believes its beneficiation process can achieve the highest grade (grades of 2.15-2.64% vanadium pentoxide) of magnetite concentrate compared to other Australian vanadium deposits. It is possible because of the extremely high-level vanadium concentration in magnetite crystal, which gradually lowers upwards in the deposit. Given this intrinsic nature, processing a smaller concentrate mass can deliver the targeted vanadium pentoxide product.

Low-grade zone: A greater mass of disseminated magnetite gabbro feed is required to produce a magnetite concentrate sourced from the low in-situ grade of 0.3-0.4% vanadium pentoxide with disseminated nature of mineralisation.

The focus is on producing a high-vanadium grade magnetite concentrate that boasts a higher mass yield and vanadium deportment with low contaminants.

(Image source: KRR update, 23 September 2022)

Collaboration with Murdoch University for optimising process flow sheet

The company is working with Murdoch University's Hydrometallurgy Research Group on an optimised process flow sheet, which is expected to assist the company in producing high-purity vanadium pentoxide, titanium dioxide and iron metal.  

On the research front, the company has signed an agreement with the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre, supporting two of its strategic projects as listed below:

Data source: KRR update, 6 October 2021

King River has wrapped up a comprehensive technical background report of its large Speewah project. The company has kicked off discussions with potential buyers and/or partners for the project.

KRR shares were trading at AU$0.014 apiece in the early hours of 23 November 2022, up nearly 8% from the last close.