08 January 2018:  https://www.miningnews.net/dryblower/news/1315223/dryblower-watches-vanadium-boom-waits-bust

From that article:

IF you believe the latest commodity-price tips the red-hot metal for 2018 is vanadium, but if you’ve been around as long as Dryblower you know that it’s also time to be wary of the steel-hardening material which is a notorious hot-house flower that wilts quickly after blooming.

Newcomers to the curious world of vanadium might not believe that comment because the evidence pointing to a vanadium boom is persuasive with the price close to a 10-year high, and with forecasts of another 50% rise over the next two years.

Multiple factors are driving vanadium which is used in a variety of specialty steels, including high-speed tools, and has recently emerged as a competitor for lithium in electricity storage via the vanadium redox battery.

In theory, vanadium could one day be recognised as a member of the battery metals group, while maintaining its traditional market in steel, a price-driver combination which might become super-charged if there is not a substantial increase in supply.

But, behind the good news is the small problem of history and a track record of short-term vanadium booms and long-term busts.

Believers in a new vanadium boom argue that this time it will be different, ignoring the warnings that it never is, and that every vanadium boom ends in disaster for investors.

To underline that point Dryblower can tell of a number of encounters with vanadium that stretch back almost 40 years, to a time when prominent WA businessmen Garrick Agnew and Harold Clough teamed up to produce vanadium at Wundowie in the hills east of Perth.

It was, as Sir Humphrey Appleby in the TV comedy Yes Minister, would have said a courageous plan, in that the risks were high and failure the most likely outcome – which is what happened when production ended a few years after its 1980 start.

Operational problems dogged the Wundowie plant, in much the same way they later dogged another Australian attempt to enter the world of vanadium production at the Windimurra project of Precious Metals Australia.

Other attempts at vanadium production date back into the 1960s when the Barrambie prospect was touted as a world-class vanadium opportunity, and when that didn’t work it morphed into a prospective source of titanium.

If the technical issues of successfully producing vanadium are not high enough to frighten the average investor there is the problem of competition, either from South Africa or China where vanadium is mainly produced as a by-product of the steel industry.

Financial problems at Highveld Steel in South Africa has helped boost the vanadium price because it was once one of the world’s leading sources of ferrovanadium, one of the more commonly traded forms of vanadium.

Highveld was also a major problem for Windimurra when it started production, flooding the market with low-priced material which compounded the operational difficulties of the Australian project.

With a roller-coaster reputation it is worth testing the claim that this time it will be different, if only because it never has been in every previous vanadium boom and the inevitable bust.

One of the factors named as supporting a different outcome in 2018 include China’s clean-up of its heavily-polluting steel industry, a significant change which could underpin the vanadium price if China sticks to its promise of limiting steel production which, in turn, means limiting by-product output.

Another factor is the possibility of the vanadium redox battery developing the commercial traction which has been missing for the past 30 years despite the promise of being a significant competitor to lithium ion batteries.

The improvement in the vanadium market has sparked fresh investor (and investment bank) interest in vanadium, including a report released last week by the research firm Hallgarten & Company which included a tip that the price of the metal would rise from recent trades at US$9.50 a pound to $13.20/lb by the end of 2018 – and then up to $18/lb in 2020.

[9-Aug-2019 Vanadium price:  US$6.55/lb (Europe) / US$9.60/lb (China)]

That encouraging forecast is being reflected in the share prices of ASX-listed companies with vanadium exposure, including Australian Vanadium, King River Copper, TNG, and Technology Metals.

However, if the price does reach US$18/lb every mothballed vanadium project in the world will be dusted off, and projects that have spent decades waiting in the wings might finally be developed, triggering a surge in supply and a re-run of the traditional vanadium cycle which has destroyed far more wealth than it has ever created.

--- excerpts only - click on link above for the full article ---

11 August 2019:  Disclosure:  I did hold TNG, but now don't hold any vanadium companies.  While that article is 19 months old, it is just as true today.  Vanadium is very difficult to extract economically.  TNG or AVL might succeed.  History suggests they won't.