Largo Resources Inaugurates First Latin America Vanadium Mine, Eyes Expansion

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Largo Resources Limited (TSX:LGO) (Toronto, Ontario), through subsidiary Vanadio de Maracas Limitada (Maracas, Brazil), began operations last week at the first vanadium mine in Latin America. The Maracas mine holds the highest-grade vanadium resource in the world; according to the company, Maracas also has the lowest cost of production for a vanadium mine. Total investment in the project is about US$248 million.

Vanadium is primarily used as a strengthening alloy for steel and titanium, and it is applied in the construction, infrastructure and transportation industries. Due to its resistance properties for the corrosion and abrasion, vanadium is largely used for chemical and power generation plants, as well as in the aerospace and aviation markets. Today, the largest producers of vanadium are China, South Africa and Russia.

The Maracas mine is located in the city of Maracas, in the state of Bahia, in northern Brazil. It includes an open pit mine and a three-stage crushing circuit, milling units, a magnetic separator, and a roasting area to produce vanadium oxide. The ball mill for the grinding plant and a 90-meter-long rotary kiln for calcination were supplied by FLSmidth & Company A/S (OMX:FLS) (Copenhagen, Denmark).

The Maracas mine is expected to produce 9,000 tons of vanadium oxide in its first few years of operations. Through an off-take agreement, the first six years of Maracas production will be sold to GlencoreXstrata plc (Baar, Switzerland). Largo Resources is already working on conceptual studies to expand the processing plant's capacity 60% starting in 2017.

Largo Resources also holds two other exploration projects in Brazil: the Currais Novos tungsten project and Campo Alegre vanadium and titanium project. In Canada, the company is advancing the Northern Dancer project, one large tungsten and molybdenum deposit.

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