Toronto-based vanadium producer Largo Resources said vanadium output at its Brazilian site in Q4 2020 rose 11 percent, year-over-year. Largo operates a vanadium site in the city of Maracás, in the state of Bahia.
Largo said vanadium output in Q4 2020 totaled 3,340 mt, up from 3,001 mt in Q4 2019. As for the full-year of 2020, vanadium output reached 11,825 mt, 12 percent up, year-over-year, from 10,577 mt in the full-year of 2019.
“Operations at the Maracás Menchen mine (in Brazil) had an exceptionally strong finish to the year resulting in new quarterly and annual production records,” the company’s CEO, Paulo Misk, said.
Misk said vanadium prices have increased in the first weeks of 2021 fueled by “solid demand, low inventories and renewed optimism in the overall metals and industrial complex.”
Vanadium is used as an additive for steel. It is used to produce rust resistant, as well as high-speed tool steels.