The Australian Vanadium Ltd (ASX: AVL) share price has been a very strong performer on Wednesday.
In morning trade, the vanadium developer's shares are up a whopping 23% to 4.3 cents.
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Why is the Australian Vanadium share price racing higher?
The catalyst for the rise in the Australian Vanadium share price on Wednesday was news that the company has been awarded a major government grant.
According to the release, the company has been awarded a $49 million grant under the Australian Government's Modern Manufacturing Initiative (MMI) Collaboration Stream. The funds will be put towards the development of the Australian Vanadium Project near Meekatharra and Geraldton, which aims to create an Australian green fuelled vanadium industry.
The release notes that vanadium is on the critical metal list in many countries, including Australia, the United States, Japan and many European countries. The metal is used in critical aerospace and chemical applications, is a key component in high strength and specialty steel products, and has an important and growing use in long duration, safe energy storage applications.
This clearly fits the bill for the $1.3 billion MMI, which forms part of the government's Resources Technology and Critical Minerals Processing Roadmap that aims to develop Australia as a regional resources technology and critical minerals processing hub within 10 years.
'Delighted'
Australian Vanadium's Managing Director, Vincent Algar, revealed that he was delighted with the news.
He commented: "AVL is delighted to have been awarded this grant from the Australian Government. Our project will create hundreds of jobs in Australia and help to build the critical vanadium industry both locally and internationally. We have developed an innovative and collaborative approach to building a fully integrated project, from mine through to processing and end use in the steel and battery markets."
"Our collaborations are allowing us to build a project with unique social and environmental benefits. We look forward to working with our partners to bring the Australian Vanadium Project into production and further develop downstream opportunities for green steel and the vanadium redox flow battery market," Algar concludes.
