The Balasausqandiq mine and processing plant will be built and commissioned in two phases to reach a mining rate of around 5 million tonnes of ore per year. Phase 1 will involve the construction and operation of an initial process plant treating 1.65m tonnes per year, followed, as soon as commissioning has been successfully concluded, by a Phase 2 operation for a further 3.3m tonnes per year. The staging is to allow for the reduction of engineering scale-up risk and to also allow time for the development of vanadium markets as production increases. It also reduces the amount of capital that has to be raised for the initial development, with the second phase to be largely financed by the earnings of the first.
In parallel with the development of the Balasausqandiq deposit, the Company has converted the original pilot test-plant, developed to prove the metallurgical processes to be used at the main mine processing facility, into a production plant capable of processing bought-in vanadium-bearing concentrates to recover the base metals for resale.