Surefire Resources advances work at Victory Bore and Unaly Hill projects in WA

Surefire Resources (ASX: SRN) has reported solid progress in the development of its flagship Victory Bore vanadium-iron ore project in Western Australia.

The company has identified key stakeholders to assist in fast-tracking activities such as mining contractors, haulage infrastructure and shipping services, co-development of the planned vanadium plant in Saudi Arabia and the appointment of product offtake and funding partners.

Productive discussions

Surefire chief executive officer Jan de Jager said stakeholder discussions had so far been positive.

“The continued discussions are essential to further progress the critical work that is needed to move towards the completion of a definitive feasibility study for Victory Bore,” he said.

“The study will then allow our board of directors to make a final investment decision for this remarkable critical mineral opportunity.”

Viable vanadium project

Victory Bore contains one of the largest vanadium resources in Australia, with an estimated 464 million tonnes at 0.3% vanadium oxide, 5.12% titanium oxide and 17.7% iron.

It also has an ore reserve of 93Mt at 0.35% vanadium oxide, 5.2% titanium oxide and 19.8% iron.

A December pre-feasibility study confirmed Surefire could have a viable project producing approximately 1.25Mtpa of high-quality vanadium-titanium magnetite concentrate at the mine site north of the WA port of Geraldton.

Under a vanadium processing deal secured in August, the company will produce up to six products from that concentrate in Saudi Arabia.

Unaly Hill test work

Surefire has initiated a new metallurgical testing program at its wholly-owned Unaly Hill magnetite deposit, also in WA.

The company realised the deposit’s potential to produce high-grade concentrates following an internal review of test results from 2018, which returned grades of up to 63% iron and 10.9% titanium oxide.

It has appointed METS Engineering to develop and manage the new assessment with a view to producing a high-grade (more than 62%) iron concentrate by separating it from the titanium.

“There have been significant advances [since the 2018 tests] in magnetic separation including the use of rare-earth magnets which can result in the recovery of high-grade iron, vanadium and titanium magnetic concentrates,” Mr de Jager said.

“Our internal study revealed potential for an early production operation from Unaly Hill to produce an iron magnetite concentrate which will be able to attract a pricing premium if delivered to the green steel market.”

Carbon-neutral steel

‘Green’ steel is produced without fossil fuels using a carbon-neutral process that does not emit greenhouse gases.

Research has shown the global green steel market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 67.2% from $4.06 billion in 2023 to $148.6b by 2030.