mining trade / critical minerals

Reports Vanadium Resources Ltd (VR8) securing an offtake agreement with a US electrolyte producer for vanadium pentoxide from the Steelpoortdrift project in South Africa's Bushveld Complex. The agreement is contingent on mine financing and is structured as a tolling arrangement, with the US buyer processing South African vanadium oxide into VRFB electrolyte. VR8 is at feasibility stage; construction decision is expected in late 2026.

“VR8's Steelpoortdrift South Africa vanadium pentoxide will supply a US VRFB electrolyte producer under an April 2026 offtake contingent on mine financing.”

Reports on the structural decline in Chinese zinc mine output, noting that Hunan and Yunnan province operations are experiencing grade depletion after decades of intensive extraction; estimates Chinese domestic zinc mine production will fall 5-8% in 2026, reducing the concentrate feed available to Chinese smelters and prompting smelters to substitute with imported concentrate, while simultaneously exporting refined zinc where margins allow. Notes that the global zinc mining pipeline outside China is thin: Century mine in Australia (Develop Global) is in reclamation, and Vedanta's Gamsberg Phase 2 in South Africa is the only material new supply in development.

“Chinese zinc mine output is declining structurally as Hunan and Yunnan deposits deplete, turning China into a net zinc exporter in 2026 for the first time in years.”