JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) - Australian strategic metals developer TNG on Tuesday said it has had preliminary meetings with Germany's KfW IPEX-Bank and received a positive hearing with an expression of interest to conduct further due diligence ahead of possible mandating for finance for the development of its flagship Mount Peake vanadium/titanium/iron project, in the Northern Territory.

The ASX-listed company has also engaged with other debt finance providers, including North Australia Infrastructure Fund and Australia's Export Credit Finance Agency, Efic. "The extent of their potential involvement in the funding package is unknown at this stage, but we expect updates in this area shortly," it stated.

The miner already has binding life-of-mine (LoM) agreements in place with Woojin Metals, a memorandum of understanding with trader Wogen for LoM sales and marketing of titanium dioxide products and an agreement with trader Gunvor for iron products.

The miner added that it was in continued discussions with other interested parties for the remaining 40% of forecast vanadium pentoxide production, while it was also discussing titanium pigment offtake with producers and end-users of pigment products.

Meanwhile, TNG reported that it had also received proposals for the engineering, procurement and construction of the Mount Peake project and was reviewing potential partners which were best positioned and aligned with TNG's development objectives.

"The Mount Peake project business model could benefit from an increase in demand for vanadium pentoxide as a result of the commodity's immense large-scale battery potential," the company noted, adding that it had investigated and subsequently successfully produced commercial-grade vanadium electrolyte (VE) from Mount Peake.

"VE has a number of significant differences to other battery metals or materials. VE efficiency does not decay over time, is highly stable, and is suitable for large complexes, towns and manufacturing sites. The long-term nature of the battery makes them ideal to replace static long-term diesel power," it stated.