Vanadium Resources (ASX:VR8) has appointed Isabel Geldenhuys as consulting engineer and head of pyrometallurgical process design to support development of its V-Iron Plant at the Steelpoortdrift Project in South Africa.
Geldenhuys brings 30 years of pyrometallurgy and mineral processing experience. She has specialist expertise in vanadium-bearing titaniferous magnetite ore reduction and electric smelting.
She spent 25 years at Mintek, South Africa’s national mineral research organisation, rising to manager of pyrometallurgy.
“With 25 years of hands-on process leadership at Mintek, Isabel brings rare and directly relevant expertise at a critical point in our development,” Executive Chairman Jurie Wessels says.
CEO Nick Diack says Geldenhuys’s career has been defined by groundbreaking work in vanadium-bearing titaniferous magnetite reduction and smelting.
“Co-production is the dominant vanadium model in China and Russia for good reason: producing both vanadium and iron enables large-scale, economic output while insulating against the price volatility that has affected many prior operations,” Diack adds.
VR8 is advancing an accelerated V-Iron Plant Scoping Study, leveraging previously completed Definitive Feasibility Study-level mining and concentrator work at Steelpoortdrift.
The study will evaluate the financial metrics of co-producing pig iron and vanadium-bearing slag.
Geldenhuys says the ore characteristics at Steelpoortdrift present a compelling opportunity to apply best available technology to co-production.
“My immediate focus is to establish a technically robust process design basis — one that tests the credible routes properly against the ore and against the advantages of a brownfield location,” Geldenhuys says.
The Scoping Study is scheduled for completion by the end of September 2026.
Vanadium Resources continues discussions with US government-aligned development finance institutions, EU critical raw materials Global Gateway partners, and non-governmental strategic investors.
The company has a non-binding offtake term sheet with US Vanadium for 100% of its vanadium-bearing slag and is negotiating towards a binding definitive agreement.
Write to JC Villarba at Mining.com.au
Images: Mining.com.au
