welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn De Guzman with Inn I'm speaking with graham arvidson CEO of Australian vadium based in birth Australia hi Graham hi there thanks for having me yes good to have you so this is the first time that we're having a conversation I think we could start our conversation with you know just talking about vadium and why it's important you know against the back the backdrop of critical minerals and you know the energy transition sure um it is a really exciting metal um uh depending on who


you talk to it is in the top five most important Metals in the energy transition and uh just to give you the background badium historically has been uh almost entirely used as a uh alloying agent in the Ste steel industry so that's not insignificant in that it'll continue to play an outsized role in decarbonization through that Avenue and just to summarize one uh one kilo of vadium in a ton of Steel basically has this really outsized impact of um having the emissions uh through the steel


process so we do see a really important role for badium in steel going forward and that's an ongoing story of continuous growth over many decades what we're really excited about though is the use of vadium in batteries and there's a technology out there that is fully commercialized and proven it was invented over 40 years ago and it is called a vadium flow battery and flow batteries have been around and used in Niche applications for a very long time but why we're excited and where they're


going to come to the four and create all kinds of new demand in vadium is in what we call long duration storage so stationary applications that require uh 4 6 8 10 10 or 12 hours that's where these batteries become highly economic and they have some really unique attributes that make them really excellent for these long duration grid applications so the batteries will last 25 years with virtually no degradation they're in terms of the the circle uh recyclability they can be recycled very


easily and simply at the end of life if there is an end of life and importantly they're nonflammable and therefore the cost uh the the safe of the battery is is excellent now what the question is always asked why aren't these batteries seen more often why why aren't people so aware of vadium the answer is that until now there hasn't really been a need for long duration storage and as grits continue the decarbonization journey there's a really significant demand curve for requiring Technologies like


flow batteries that work well and economically at those longer durations so I think you'll see um it's already happening in China you're seeing massive growth in flow battery installations uh really significant demand growth and also interestingly in lockstep in China they're installing manufacturing capacity for these batteries as well so we uh at Australian vadi I'm very excited about how that plays out not just in China but in the rest of the world as the unique attributes of this fully commercialized


technology uh become more prominent and that the applications for it um you know really Excel so here in Australia as one example the AO which is the key uh forecaster on the East Coast of Australia they're forecasting 40 gwatt hours of this um what they call long duration technology that's required just by 2030 and the implications of that for vadium are wonderful uh in terms of the market and we intend to participate that in in the near future so that's a little snapshot of vadium uh right now and it's


just really starting that journey and China is the Forerunner and we expect that to follow in other jurisdictions right so it's it's a probably a good time to talk about your company um you know as we said this is the first time we're having a conversation maybe provide our audience sort of an overview of what um AVL Australian vadium is um what your value proposition is and why should investors be interested in your company wonderful thanks for the opportunity to speak look at Australian vadium uh our for thesis


to is to be a lowcost producer of vadium oxides and our core strategy we call Pit to battery so why should we be interested in AVL is we are situated in the Midwest of Western Australia So jurisdictionally currently 60% of the world's vadium Supply comes from China another 15% from Russia and another 10% from South Africa there's a real need for additional jurisdictional production and the Midwest of Western Australia here we have some of the best vtm deposits that fight vadium titanium


magnetite all of the world's primary production comes from these vtm style deposits and evl is one of the most if not the most advanced primary uh development Assets in the world and how we intend to be a lowcost producer is simply by having a really good or body we have a very long mine life 25 years and we have some excellent badium grades that will basically underpin why we can be a lowcost producer and then furthermore not to be overlooked we are uh a team of vadium experts on our board


we have Daniel Harris who's been in the industry for many decades very well known as as a vadium expert our coo Todd Richardson has been operating in vadium assets his whole life and myself in a past life has operated a vadium asset as well so we're deeply knowledgeable and we're very lucky to be um underpinned by a very um Advanced uh lowcost assets so we intend to be a tier one producer here in Western Australia in the near future and uh the investment proposition really is to get behind the asset now as we


continue to finalize all the things to drisk the asset so finalizing permitting financing oft take and the various things that flow past the DFS so our economics are currently underpinned by a definitive feasibility study an d uh I think we could talk very quickly now about the merger that we just completed that really um improves our odds of success yeah so that was what was the recent news that you had uh a merger with technology medals Australia could you talk a bit a bit more about that the highlights of that and what that why


that is significant yes thanks um really significant for both of our companies to come together um we enter into a scheme of arrangement in September to join the two businesses together and we've just completed that process in early February to become one bigger better project and I would just highlight the really important things that flow from that merger uh first and foremost is that all of the key strategic imperatives that both of our businesses were pursuing are going to become simpler now so we're


both pursuing Advanced assets where we need off-take uh financing and that's debt and Equity um and we need to finalize our permitting and all of that becomes a simpler story so even as a a standalone entity as one entity all those things will become easier but ultimately why mergers uh can achieve what we think is 1 plus 1 equals 3 is the physical properties of the asset so the obvious things like uh rationalizing infrastructure are there and we're going to pursue those to improve the economics


of the project but actually bringing these tenements together offers us opportunities as well to improve the economics of the assets so we're uh trying to finalize a series of trade-off studies that will be uh finalized in the next quarter and off the back of that we'll refresh our feasibility study to include the what we think are very material benefits to the asset and finance ability and profitability and then npv of the project so really exciting uh a few months ahead of us as we uh work through what the combined


asset can look like and we look forward to updating our investors as we get through that is part of the the strategy moving forward to um uh you know eventually produce the vadium and if so for offtake agreements that you're anticipating or you anti anticipating more coming from the battery sector than the traditional uh you know steel outl what are your thoughts on that yeah look um offtake is highly strategic for us um as I said said the the battery Market's extremely exciting and through our subsidiary Bon


uh over a number of years we've been developing that market specifically in Australia but globally in terms of how we can uh leverage our product into the battery market so when we think about off-take there's the traditional routes that need to be there because as we're sitting here today um you know so over 85% of the market is still Steel in the last uh three or four years it has in terms of in batteries it has gone uh from less than 1% of the global market to what is now today over 10% so that's


a pretty staggering change over all these sort of three years but it still means that our product probably needs to play a role in steel and batteries so as we think about off take it's about making sure we have the right Partners to achieve both it's getting exposure to the battery story uh I think is big in as best as we can and then uh making sure our project is still underpinned and marketable in the in the the known bankable steel industry so um that's how we're thinking about off-take and we're


pursuing really Advanced talks with a number of opportunities across those spaces so what are your plans for 2024 what can the investor Community expect from the company this year look I think the the main catalyst to look out for is um how this merger comes together so I think we can uh by the end of this next quarter we can really shed some light on uh the work we've been working on since we announced the merger in September finalizing that work and then letting our investors know where we think


that'll take us with the project in terms of improved economics um then there's just the obvious and uh same uh strategic comparatives as before that will continue to unlock valuation of this project and that is finalizing all of our approvals securing that off so we produce vadium but we also produce some co-products and getting Binding off take for for those co-products will I think uh give us in our investors further confidence in the economics of the project um and really financing so as as


the projects come together we can really put our foot down on progressing the debt financing side as we seek to get really favorable uh government related uh debt funding opportunities and uh we do if our investors recall we've secured a $49 million Federal grant um 10 million of which we were paid in June last year but we're working really hard to continue to unlock um the additional Milestone payments from that 49 million Grant and look forward to updating the market as that unfolds as


well great well thanks gr for joining me and uh speaking with me today about your company my pleasure thank you thanks and thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another engaging conversation on CEO insights if you like this video make sure you subscribe to our Channel at and turn on notifications so you don't miss future updates and interviews see you next [Music] time