QEM has increased Julia Creek’s project attractiveness. Pic via Getty Images.
Mining
Special Report: A substantial 28% upgrade of QEM’s Julia Creek vanadium endowment and 32% increase in 2C oil have boosted the company’s ambitions of becoming an integral cog in the wheel of Australia’s clean energy transition mechanism.
QEM (ASX:QEM) is looking to leverage Aussie-invented vanadium redox flow battery (VFB) technology for long duration energy storage (LDES) – a game-changer for storing and supplying renewable energy production.
The University of Queensland (UQ) is also on board.
A test work collaboration between UQ and QEM at Julia Creek proved the ability to produce high-purity (>99%) vanadium pentoxide from its waste streams – a ‘circular economy’ solution that provides a potential locally sourced feedstock for vanadium batteries before QEM begins mining.
Confidence in QEM’s flagship Julia Creek vanadium resource west of Townsville, Queensland, has increased with the indicated resource rising by 28% to 461Mt of a total 2,870Mt @ 0.31% vanadium (V2O5) and its 2C oil shale estimate has been upped 32% to 92 million barrels oil equivalent (MMboe), after updating the petroleum resources management system (PRMS).
The update includes a maiden 1C oil shale resource of 6.3 million barrels (MMbbls).
Drilling also increased the 3C resources to 654MMboe and identified further multi-commodity potential with copper, molybdenum, nickel, zinc and aluminium able to be produced as by-products from the vanadium processing, which could add to revenue streams.
Map of the indicated and inferred resources at Julia Creek. Pic: Supplied (QEM)
QEM managing director Gavin Loyden says the resource upgrade at Julia Creek demonstrates the size and consistency of the tenements, with increases in indicated vanadium and 2C oil resources a result of targeted drilling in the northern area of the deposit.
“The resource upgrade comes at an optimal time, enabling QEM to integrate the new findings into our new scoping study, which is on track for release in 2Q 2024, signifying a major step forward for the company’s production ambitions,” Loyden says.
“We’ve substantially bolstered the confidence level in both our vanadium and oil shale resource bases, propelling us towards realising our ambition of developing Australia’s critical minerals resources and delivering innovative energy solutions which will help meeting energy transition targets.
“We will build on this highly encouraging resource upgrade with QEM’s 2024/25 exploration campaign, with the details for the program currently being finalised.”
This article was amended on March 5 to reflect the updated resource announced by QEM.
This article was developed in collaboration with QEM, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
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