The company’s announcement coincided with Multicom Resources starting construction this week of its St Elmo project near Julia Creek.

The region is regarded as one of the world’s best resources for vanadium which is used in strengthening steel but also increasingly for grid-scale batteries for renewable energy projects.

Several other companies are also at varying stages of development of vanadium projects, including QEM and Richmond Vanadium.

CMG said Lindfield had an after-tax internal rate of return of 18 per cent.

It would produce about 11,000 tonnes of vanadium pentoxide over 25 years and 550 tonnes of molybdenum. The study did not evaluate high purity alumina but CMG said this would be something that could have significant upside for the project.

CMG managing director Scott Winter said it was an exciting result for the project.

“CMG has been focussed on assessing the resource to identify the potential for various viable product streams and the results show that vanadium pentoxide, HPA and molybdenum trioxide are all profitable,” Winter said.

“The study has been a success in developing and refining our process flow sheet to the point of achieving concentrate and recovery grades that warrant the next phase of pilot plant testing.

“Furthermore, the testing has identified a potentially significant upside in the overall resource with the positive beneficiation results achieved  in processing the upper stream.”

He said the study highlighted to the company the project could deliver significant returns for shareholders and bring ongoing benefits to the stakeholders at Julia Creek.

The company has also this week signed a license agreement with Lava Blue, a mineral processing technology company that specialises in the processing and production of HPA from various ore types.

The agreement would enable CMG and Lava Blue to further refine the processing technology and develop the High Purity Alumina production stream at Lindfield.