Vanadium explorer ScandiVanadium — formerly known as furniture assembly business AssembleBay — will trade on the ASX today for the first time since April 2017.

ScandiVanadium (ASX:SVD) raised $3 million — issuing just over 111 million shares at 2.7c per share — to acquire the Skåne vanadium project in southern Sweden.

The 220 sq km Skåne project comprises two exploration permits and a further nine applications for exploration permits in the surrounding area, which are pending.

ScandiVanadium, which plans to kick off a maiden drilling program in early 2019, wants to take advantage of the expected growth in demand for vanadium used in vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) applications.

Based on very limited historic exploration, the company has estimated an exploration target over the Skåne project area of between 610 million to 1.2 billion tonnes at an average grade of 0.5 per cent to 0.8 per cent V2O5.

The Skåne vanadium project in southern Sweden.
The Skåne vanadium project in southern Sweden.

The vanadium is hosted in black shale, which ScandiVanadium says is unusual “compared to most vanadium deposits currently in production”.

“Whereas a number of known technologies exist for extracting vanadium from black shale, the company’s ability to achieve its business goals effectively will require it to identify, develop and implement a flow sheet that is suitable for the specific ore type present within the Skåne Project,” it said.

The company intends to use the funds raised to drill test the project area, undertake metallurgical test work, and conduct community and stakeholder engagement.

Most existing AssembleBay directors will step down.

New directors including chairman Brandon Munro, managing director David Minchin, and non-exec director Ian Burvill will be paid salaries of $100,000, $213,000, and $30,000 respectively.

Simon Robertson will resign as company director and earn about $80,000 a year in a non-exec director role.

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Mr Munro is managing director at ASX-listed uranium explorer Bannerman Resources (ASX:BMN), which is focused on developing the Etango uranium project in Namibia.

Mr Burvillis is also non-executive director at Bannerman and mining tech investment firm Jolimont Global Mining Systems, while new managing director David Minchin is a UK-based geologist with 15 years’ experience working in exploration and mining.

The failed online furniture assembly platform business AssembleBay has already reskinned itself a number of times over the years.

It was a biofuels business Agri Energy up until 2011 before it acquired oil and gas exploration assets and became Sirocco Energy.

That became Assemblebay (ASX:ASY) in 2016, which threw in the towel in December 2017.

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