Vanadium
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[edit] Overview
Vanadium is a brittle, very hard metal, light silvery in colour which is stable in dry air at room temperature and oxidizes at high temperatures. It is the seventeenth most available element in the earth's crust with content of 0.015%.
Vanadium is a soft and ductile, silver-grey metal. It has good resistance to corrosion by alkalis, sulfuric and hydrochloric acid. It oxidizes readily at about 933 K (660 C). Vanadium has good structural strength and a low fission neutron cross section, making it useful in nuclear applications. Although a metal, it shares with chromium and manganese the property of having valency oxides with acid properties.
[edit] Applications
The most important use of vanadium is as an additive for steel, with approximately 80% of vanadium going into ferrovanadium, a steel additive. It is used for the production of rust resistant, spring and high speed tool steels. It is also added to steels to stabilise carbides.
Vanadium foil is also used to bond titanium to steel.
Due to its low fission neutron cross section vanadium is also used in nuclear applications.
Vanadium compounds are also used in a number of applications such as:
- Vanadium pentoxide as a catalyst in the ceramics industry
- As a mordent in the printing and dyeing of fabrics
- In the manufacture of aniline black[1]
[edit] Supply
South Africa, Russia and China constitute majority of the reserves playing a dominant role in vanadium production. It is anticipated that the reserve base in U.S.A. and Australia would become important in the near future.Vanadium occurs in seams of titaniferrous magnetite situated in Bushveld complex having an average of 1.5% V2O5.
- South Africa: It represent the world's largest reserves. The production comes from Anglo American's HighVeld Steel and Vanadium Corporation [ HighVeld], Vametco Minerals Corp. [Vametco], Vanadium Technologies [Vantech] and Rhombus Vanadium Holdings Ltd. [Rhovan].
- Russia :The installed capacity in this country is about 20000 tons per year of V2O5. How ever, it is reported to run at less than 50% of the capacity. V2O5 production is mainly from titanomagnetite and ilemenite deposits located around Kachkanar and Sverlov in Ural mountains and in Kola peninsula. Vanadium is mined from Mount Kachkanar, Gusevogorsk and Pervouralsk.
- China :Vanadium is produced from mining of titaniferrous magnetite deposits located in Sichuan and Anhui provinces in central and eastern China as well as from slags imported from Russia, South Africa and New Zealand.
- United States of America :The production of vanadium is about 4000 tons per year of vanadium content that comes from eight firms located in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Utah. These plants produce vanadium pentoxide, ferro-vanadium, vanadium chemicals and vanadium metal by processing vanadium bearing iron slags, fly ash, petroleum residues and spent catalysts. Strategic Minerals Corp. is the largest producer of V2O5 and Shieldalloy Metallurgical Corp. is the biggest producer of ferro-vanadium in U.S.A.
- Australia :The Windimurra mine run by Xstrata AG is reported to be the largest primary producer of vanadium pentoxide in the world.[2]
[edit] Demand
[edit] Pricing Structure
Ferrovanadium prices continued their recent steady improvement in Europe as the metal continued to recover some of the ground lost to ferroniobium after the price spiked two years ago. 70-80 percent ferrovanadium is indicated around $40-42 per kilogram – a six-month high. Steel demand is strong (see above) and vanadium supply from China has diminished. There are rumors China will cancel the existing tax rebate on vanadium pentoxide and impose a new export tax.
In the United States, ferrovanadium has lagged Europe but is now $19.00-21.00 per pound versus $17.50-18.50 previously. Market sources expect ferrovanadium will continue climbing in the near term, perhaps to $25 per pound.
A recent market report noted that 2006 saw the depletion of large vanadium pentoxide inventories, an 8 percent rise in world vanadium demand to 98,900 tonnes V2O5 equivalent, and a 12 percent increase in supply to 98,000 tonnes, thus reducing the market deficit to under 1,000 tonnes. The report forecast market demand to grow 5-6 percent annually to reach 118,600 tonnes V2O5equivalent in 2010.
Spring 2005 saw vanadium prices rise to all-time record levels as strong demand from the steel industry in 2004 – China and the U.S., primarily – pushed prices of vanadium pentoxide up to $27 per pound in March 2005, compared with prices below $2.50 per pound in Spring 2003. Prices of ferrovanadium peaked at $126 per kilogram in April 2005. Vanadium supply increased in 2005, especially from producers in China, while the high prices led to some substitution for ferrovanadium by ferroniobium in engineered steels. As a result, vanadium consumption dropped by 3-4 percent to about 91,000 tonnes V2O5equivalent in 2005 and the market deficit fell from over 10,000 tonnes V2O5equivalent in 2004 to 3,600 tonnes in 2005. By January 2006, vanadium pentoxide prices had dropped to around $8.00 per pound. Prices subsequently weakened to around $6.25 per pound vanadium pentoxide and $31.50 per kilogram for ferrovanadium in early January 2007.
At a recent metals conference, Evraz suggested the vanadium market might not be large enough to accommodate PMA’s Windimurra plant in Australia. Recalling how prices collapsed when the first Windimurra plant opened in 1998, Evraz said that ferrovanadium prices would likely slide back to $35-40 per kilogram.[3]
[edit] Price forecast
[edit] External References
- ↑ http://www.azom.com/details.asp?ArticleID=1676 Vanadium – Properties and Applications of Vanadium
- ↑ http://www.steelworld.com/featurefeb07.pdf VANADIUM MARKET IN THE WORLD
- ↑ http://www.largoresources.com/pdf/LargoLetter_Apr07.pdf
