Demand exceeds supply by 20% in “explosive” vanadium market
Channel: InvestorCoffee
Date: 2017-03-27

March 27, 2017 -- Mark Smith, President, CEO, and Director of Largo Resources Ltd. (TSX: LGO | OTCQB: LGORF) in an interview with InvestorIntel’s CEO Tracy Weslosky to discuss the economics and applications of vanadium. The supply of vanadium is 20% lower than the demand for it - “We are virtually on the edge of something very explosive”, says Mark about the metal’s price in response to a rise in demand. Vanadium is a reinforcing super metal and steel is the largest market for it. But because of their top tier product, Largo can tap into the higher end applications (aeronautics for example) at a premium price. Mark can be seen as the keynote speaker at the Cleantech and Technology Metals Summit on May 15-16, in Toronto.

Tracy Weslosky: For everybody out there, the reason we’re talking to Mark today is because he’s the CEO of one of the only vanadium producers in the world. Today we’re going to talk to you about vanadium.

Mark Smith: Perfect. I love to talk about vanadium.

Tracy Weslosky: Well, Mark I actually love vanadium myself. If you could just start real quickly with an introduction to vanadium for those out there that are new to this super metal.

Mark Smith: Vanadium is a super metal. Bottom line is it makes steel stronger. Over 50% of the vanadium in the world is used in rebar. I always like to say that cause I think people need to be able to, kind of, touch and feel in their own minds what vanadium actually does. It’s primarily used in rebar and it is used to strengthen steel. It’s in a lot of the car bodies and chassis. It’s in tools because you have to have a very strong tool to do chipping or chiseling or something like that or a hammer. Those are the primary uses and it’s got all kinds of specialty applications as well. A lot of it depends on purity levels of your vanadium. That’s the story right now I think is purity levels.

Tracy Weslosky: I think the story would also be the increase in the price for vanadium. Yes?

Mark Smith: Yeah. It’s more than doubled in less than 12 months. If you take a look at the supply and demand fundamentals in the world right now it would appear as if supply is about 20% below the demand level. That’s making very conservative assumptions on the demand level. If there’s any little uptick in demand at all, that spread just becomes worse and worse. You couple that supply and demand information with inventory information, which we’ve been plotting for 10 to 15 years now, and the inventory information suggests that we’ve been digging into inventory to meet the difference between supply and demand for over 6 years now, it’s our opinion that there’s very little inventory in the world…to access the full interview, click here

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