The announcement by ScandiVanadium – the company which is exploring the Scanian Alum shale for vanadium – that it secured 500 000 SEK for a joint project from VINNOVA has made headlines in the media and has outraged people on Facebook.
First what is VINNOVA? VINNOVA is a Swedish funding agency which – according to the information on their website – supports the build up of Sweden’s innovation capacity by funding research and innovation projects, but also by coordinating strategic initiatives and collaborating with actors across all sectors. One line of funding is within the strategic innovation programme for mining and metal recovery – STRIM, which opened a call for applications last year and announced its decisions a few weeks ago..
ScandiVanadium, together with partners, had applied for a 6 months pre-study project and was granted 500 000 kr, as announced by ScandiVanadium to its investors. The requirements for a pre-study are detailed on STRIM’s website. For a pre-study, applicants must, among other requirements, be able to demonstrate industrial relevance in the form of a letter of intent from at least one company. Also only a maximum of 75 per cent of the project’s eligible costs are being funded.
ScandiVanadium made a big issue of the fact that they were granted the pre-study by VINNOVA, and as is typical for the company, made an elephant out of a mouse. It sounds in the announcement as if the Swedish Government had selected the one and only ScandiVanadium for finally solving the following long-standing issue:
“The project builds on work undertaken by ScandiVanadium to develop a process flow sheet capable of financially viable and environmentally acceptable recovery of vanadium from the Dictyonema Formation. Test work will focus on the application of Pressure Oxidation Leaching to recover vanadium in a closed loop system, expanding on previous studies to determine the appropriate conditions of pressure, temperature, oxygen and pH.”
What ScandiVanadium wants to do is test how vanadium can be best extracted from vanadium-rich Alum shale by processing a certain number of rock samples. From where these samples are is unclear, but since the ASX Announcement again refers to the Hörby / Lybymosse drill cores (“ScandiVanadium is pleased to have secured funding to maximise the benefit of drilling conducted at Hörby“), I assume that samples from these drill cores will be processed. Samples from Hörby contain a certain amount of vanadium, but not the high values, which the company had hoped for. My guess is therefore, that samples from Flagabro, where the desired shale occurs along a creek, are used for these test runs instead.
It is not easy to scrutinize the project application, since Vinnova blackened much of the application due to confidentiality/secrecy. This is actually possible according to Swedish law (30 kap. 23 § första stycket punkt 1 OSL) in the following case: Confidentiality applies to information that concerns individual business and operating conditions, inventions or research results if it can be assumed that the individual suffers damage if the information is revealed (my translation of the Swedish text). According to Vinnova, the blackened information, such as research methods, the exact budget, test methods, technical descriptions, research focus and CV, if revealed would lead to damage.
So how much can be gained from the application, despite all the blackened parts? First of all that the project will focus on the Pressure Oxydation Leaching technique; that it will explore the appropriate conditions of pressure, temperature, oxygen and pH to test how much vanadium can be recovered from the Alum shale, and that it will characterize the clay minerals, which host vanadium. All in all, the overarching goal is to find an economic and environmental sustainable recovery of vanadium from Alum shale. The long-term goal of the project is to assist in the development of a local Swedish supply of vanadium, which could strengthen the Swedish mining sector and expand it southern Sweden.
To carry the pre-project and its three work packages (WP) through, ScandiVanadium has partnered with The Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), Processum, Clay Technology AB, and Geologica Consult AB. WP 1, which addresses the project coordination, is led by Geologica Consult AB, with RISE and ScandiVanadium as project partners. WP 2, the analytical work, is being done by RISE / Processum, and WP 3, research and development, is coordinated by ScandiVanadium, with additions from Clay Technology AB, and Geologica Consult AB.
The total budget for the project – 500 000 kr from Vinnova and 125 000 kr in-cash and 125 000 kr in-kind from ScandiVanadium – is, if I understood it correctly, divided into 315 000 kr for RISE, 15 000 kr for ScandiVanadium, and the remaining cirka 300 000 kr go to Geologica Consult AB, Processum and Clay Technology AB.
The CV’s of the persons involved from ScandiVanadium, David Minchin and John Turney, and for two other persons are also blackened, while that for project partner Geologica Consult AB is visible. It is not clear to me why there is a need to blacken all these persons CV? What is so confidential about these?
So much secrecy when it comes to a Vinnova-financed project obviously leads to suspicion. Especially since Vinnova’s research budget is tax payers’ money. It is therefore no surprise that people get upset when they read that tax payers money goes into financing a project that aims at finding the best way to extract vanadium from Alum shale; that the project application is by a foreign company which has claimed 22 000 ha of land in southern Sweden for exploration and which has the clear aim to open up mines somewhere within the claimed land area.
In addition, and as stated in the proposal, the results of this pre-study could form the base for future full-scale innovation projects with the following potential impacts: Improved societal acceptance of mineral processing plant operation due to higher resource efficiency and less emissions and waste; increased awareness of civil society of how the mining industry can improve the quality of life in society; generation of new knowledge through research to be included in educational programs and trainings.
In the eyes of many – this pilot project, financed by tax payers’ money, is nothing else but paving the way for future mines in the Alum shale. It is still a very long way to go before an eventual mine in the Alum shale will open in Skåne and Österlen. But ScandiVanadium‘s Vinnova (tax payer)-financed pre-study and the confidentially-marked parts in the application, leave a bitter taste.
I doubt if ScandiVanadium‘s future project will increase the awareness of civil society of how the mining industry can improve the quality of life in society or will improve societal acceptance of mineral processing plant operation due to higher resource efficiency and less emissions and waste. On the contrary, the whole story shows ignorance towards those who work and live on the claimed land areas, leads to a deepening of the land – city contrast and to questions regarding democratic decision making.
Barbara Wohlfarth 