Featured Company / United Battery Metals

The evolution of electric vehicles (EVs) has created quite an uproar in the metals industry.  The bottom line is that demand for EVs is undoubtedly strengthening, while technology has scientists working on ways to make EVs with greater range and less expensive price tags.  This has made some metals famous, namely lithium, cobalt and even graphite, for their use in lithium-ion (li-ion) batteries that power EVs.  Savvy market participants aren’t so naïve as to think that li-ion is the only way to propel an EV. Rapid improvements in technology may alter the idea that li-ion will be the dominant battery type in the next few years, much less decades.

Furthermore, EVs may have put a spotlight on energy storage systems, but that doesn’t imply that there is certainty that EVs will be the largest market component.  More realistically, green-powered homes and buildings will be.  To that point, investors taking a full market view have grown bullish on other potentially very valuable metals, including vanadium, to meet the world’s future energy storage needs. California just recently announced that all homes and mid rises must install solar panels by 2020. Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB’s) are by far the most superior batteries for large scale energy storage systems and the reason why the Vanadium Redox Flow batteries will dwarf the lithium battery demand. California was the first to announce this green initiative and many experts expect that the revolution will be implemented nationwide in the near future.

That goes without mentioning all of the other uses that vanadium is integral to our world already, including construction, infrastructure, aerospace, nuclear power and much more in addition to its growing footprint in the automobile sector.  There’s a reason that the U.S. Department of Interior included vanadium on its “Critical Minerals” list earlier this year as part of a concerted push to reduce dependence on imports for metals imperative to the economic security of the country.  Most of the world’s production of vanadium comes from China, Russia and South Africa, with the little produced in the U.S. coming from recycling.  US Steel has announced additional plants opening nationwide and this bull market in domestic steel production will definitely increase the demand for a domestic source of vanadium as China has begun restricting vanadium exports to the US as tensions are mounting every day between the two countries over tariffs and certain critical elements such as vanadium.

If you listen to billionaire mining legend Robert Friedland, founder of Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN), vanadium should be firmly on an investor’s radar for its unique potential to turn the li-ion battery market on its head.  Friedland sees a revolution coming in rechargeable batteries because of the vanadium redox battery (VRB). The VRB is capable of storing power from multiple sources that can be bigger and more powerful than li-ion batteries. More importantly, VRBs are able to be charged and discharged at the same time – something li-ion technology is incapable of doing.

Other benefits of VRBs include their being more stable and non-flammable with a much longer lifespan than other battery technologies, and no toxic waste.  Adding to the appeal, VRBs cost one-third of their li-ion counterparts.

Since changing its name from United Lithium to better reflect its direction following the acquisition of the Wray Mesa vanadium and uranium property in Colorado, United Battery Metals (CSE:UBM) (OTC:UBMCF) has been capturing investor’s attention and developed a nice uptrend in its stock.  As countless companies compete to develop technology or mining projects related to lithium, the change by United Battery Metals likely will prove most prescient and show the Vancouver-based company was ahead of the curve.

United Battery Metals just recently announced that they have tripled their Vanadium rich land package in Colorado and Utah.  The Wray Mesa Project is an exploration stage vanadium property located in Montrose County, Colorado, near the Utah border.  The property consists of 107 contiguous mining claims for a total size of about 3,000 acres in a mining friendly jurisdiction with access to all necessary mining infrastructure, including highways, power, labor and water.

Wray Mesa, officially part of the La Sal Creek Mining District, has a long project history going back over 60 years when exploration was conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission and U.S. Geological Survey and later in the 1960s-1980s by the private sector.

As culled from historic data, the property has actually underwent limited mining activity during the 70’s and 80’s, although no data was kept and vanadium was not the targeted mineral. At that time, Uranium was the mineral that was being explored which led to the estimated resource estimate of 2.7mm pounds of vanadium as vanadium is hosted with most uranium deposits. It is worth noting that the district did produce significant mines, including the Firefly-Pygmy, Vanadium Queen and the Black Hat mines.

Based on an existing NI 43-101 report and utilizing advanced modeling and estimation software including data from 715 historical and 24 recent drill holes, UBM management believes the project has about 500,000 pounds of uranium (Inferred) and estimates approximately 2.7 million pounds of vanadium.  The geology of the land, primarily the exposed sides of the sandstone at the desert floor, make for cost-effective extraction of the valuable metals. 

After raising $2.1 million in gross proceeds via a non-brokered private placement and warrant execution in September, the United Battery Metals team with decades of mineral exploration experience, has the cash on hand to start meaningful exploration to define the resources to current National Instrument standards.  Given the state of the industry and the dearth of new vanadium production (there were none in 2017 in the U.S.), proving resources could result in a substantial appreciation in the value of UBM, which presently stands at just $35 million.

The acquisition of Wray Mesa and change in mining strategy by UBM dovetails well with vanadium prices that have gained from around $5 per pound (vanadium pentoxide flake 98%) to roughly $20 per pound in the last 18 months, handily outstripping the price advances for lithium.  That speaks volumes to what market players think about the future of the metal.

If timing is everything, it’s time for investors to take a look at United Battery Metals before the industry starts to hit everyone’s radar.