The 6.5-year extension follows a 32 per cent increase in Gabanintha’s ore reserve estimate, which now stands at 39 million tonnes at 0.9 per cent vanadium oxide.

This represents an update to Technology Metals’ southern tenement mineral resource, 15 kilometres southeast of the proposed Gabanintha processing plant.

Technology Metals aims to produce 13,000 tonnes-a-year of vanadium oxide in accordance to the project’s feasibility study.

“The maiden southern tenement ore reserve has delivered on providing a material extension to the (Gabanintha) mine life, with higher grades and vanadium recovery into magnetic concentrate expected to enhance the flexibility for the development of this lowest cost quartile, large scale, long-life world-class vanadium project,” Technology Metals managing director Ian Prentice said.

The company has completed open pit mine modelling and scheduling work on the updated mineral resource.

The majority of the inferred mineral resource included in the run-of-mine feed will be processed towards the end of the mine life.