VANADIUM 



685 



Table 147. — Vanadium reserves in the principal sources of vanadium, 1970 



Geologic type 

 of deposit 



V2O5 Ore 



grade (millions of Vanadium 

 (percent) short tons) (short tons) 



Principal 



source of 



data ^ 



United States: 



Colorado Plateau __. 



Wilson Springs, Ark.. 



Idaho 



South-West Africa: 



Otavi district 



Sandstone U, V ±1.5 



Undetermined __ V 1 



Phosphate P, V .2-.3 



Vanadate Cu, Pb, Zn, V .7 



South Africa: 



Bushveld complex 



Finland : 



Otanmaki 



Norway : 



Rodsand 



U.S.S.R.: 



Mount Kachkanar ' 

 Chile: 



El Romeral 



Titaniferous 

 magnetite. 



Fe, V 1.5-2 



5 40,000 Griffith (1970). 



5 30,000 Do. 



(Larg«) "45,000 Do. 



1.6 6,250 South West Africa 



Co., Ltd., Annual 

 report, 1970. 



'212 2,000,000 Nel and Luyt (1964). 



Canada : 



Oil refinery 

 France: ° 



Japan: 



—do Fe, Ti, V 



—do Fe, Ti, V 



..do Fe, V ... 



Fe, V ... 



Nontitaniferous 

 magnetite. 



Crude oil Petroleum products, V 



Bauxite Al, V 



Ilmenite sands __ Ti02, V 



^ Identified deposits from which minerals can be extracted profitably with existing technology and under present economic conditions. 



2 For additional information on the geology and resources of these deposits, see references cited by Fischer and Ohl (1970). 



^Vanadium estimated by Griffith (1970) that will be recovered from ferrophosphorus slags derived from making elemental phosphorus from Idaho 

 phosphate rock during the 1968-2000 period 



* Marelle and Abdulla (1970) reported 200 million metric tons of measured, indicated, and inferred reserves and 1,800 million metric tons of po- 

 tential ores, totaling 2,200 million short tons of total resources: if the average grade of this material is 1.7 percent VuO.-., as seems likely, the total 

 vanadium resources amount to about 20,000,000 short tons V. 



° Some vanadium may have been recovered from the titaniferous magnetite ores at Kusinkoe and Pervouralskoe and perhaps from other iron de- 

 posits in the U S.S.R. in 1970 (Polyakov, 1959). 



^ Some vanadium may also have been recovered from bauxite in other European countries. 



beds, from which vana(Jiuin has not been recovered 

 commercially. But because many of these unproduc- 

 tive deposits are not developed or even extensively 

 explored, accurate resource appraisals are not possi- 

 ble. Furtermore, many of the known but unproduc- 

 tive deposits are not readily amenable to present 

 metallurgical practices, and most of these deposits 

 would yield vanadium only as a byproduct. For these 

 reasons, it is not possible, except for a few deposits, 

 to predict which ones are most likely to become pro- 

 ductive in the foreseeable future. 



Titaniferous magnetite deposits in the United 

 States contain large resources of vanadium ; those in 

 Alaska (Klemic, 1970; Wells and Thorne, 1953), 

 Wyoming (Dow, 1961), and New York (Balsley, 

 1943) are the larger and more promising ones. Large 

 resources of the same type occur in Canada (Rose, 

 1969, 1970), U.S.S.R. (Yudin and Zak, 1971; Soko- 

 lov, 1970), Republic of South Africa (see footnote 

 4, table 147), Australia (Jones, 1965; Daniels, 1967; 

 Hockley, 1971), and perhaps mainland China (Nishi- 

 waki, 1970; Hsing, 1959). Of the unproductive ti- 

 taniferous magnetite deposits, those in the Singh- 

 bhum area, Bihar and Orissa, India, seem to be the 

 most favorable to yield vanadium as the principal 

 product; ore reserves total about 20,000,000 tons and 



perhaps average about 2 percent V2O5 (Roy, 1969) . 

 Vanadium might be recoverable from the deposits at 

 Lake Sanford, N.Y., and Allard Lake and St. Urbain, 

 Quebec, Canada, that are being mined for titanium. 



Nontitaniferous magnetite deposits being mined 

 for iron ore at Buena Vista Hills, Nev. (Reeves and 

 Krai, 1955; Radtke, 1962), and the Savage River 

 area, Tasmania, Australia (Evoy, 1970), contain 

 about 0.3-0.5 percent VaO,, about that in the deposit 

 at El Romeral, Chile (table 147), from which va- 

 nadium is being recovered. Vanadium resources in 

 the deposits at Buena Vista Hills and Savage River 

 are moderate. Although the vanadium content of the 

 nontitaniferous magnetite deposits in the Kiruna and 

 Gallivare districts, Sweden, is only 0.1-0.2 percent 

 V2O.5, these deposits contain a large resource of 

 vanadium. 



During World War II, Germany recovered con- 

 siderable vanadium from sedimentary i>-on ores in 

 northwestern Europe that contain only 0.02-0.2 

 percent V2O5 (Fischer, 1946). Although vanadium 

 recovery from these ores presumably is not eco- 

 nomically feasible under present conditions, the war- 

 time operations show that recovery is technologically 

 possible ; hence, these deposits and similar ones quali- 

 fy as a vanadium resource. The reserves of the 



