Sir Mick Davis has been appointed chairperson of the board of Ferro-Alloy Resources (FAR), the European vanadium company in which his Vision Blue Resources firm has invested.

FAR, which trades on the London exchange, reported on Tuesday that the previously announced investment of $3.1-million by Vision Blue and co-investors had been completed.

Davis would become chairperson and current chairperson Chris Thomas would assume the role of a nonexecutive director.

Former Xstrata Alloys head Peet Nienaber would join the FAR board as a nonexecutive director. CEO Nick Bridgen pointed out that Nienaber had “vast technical experience” in the vanadium industry, having spearheaded the growth of Xstrata to be the largest producer of ferrochrome and a leading vanadium producer.

Vision Blue, which is investing in battery minerals and is also backing a graphite project in Madagascar, has further investment rights amounting to an additional $9.5-million in FAR.

"The completion of the second stage of the initial investment from Vision Blue allows us to continue to make fast progress on expanding our existing vanadium concentrate processing operation and to expand the scope and upgrade the quality of the ongoing feasibility study,” commented Bridgen.

The expanded scope of the feasibility study for its Balausa vanadium project, in Kazakhstan, would consider a Phase 2 expansion to four-million tonnes a year of ore and to investigate the value of byproducts.

The completion of the study has been pushed out to the first half of 2022.

Davis commented in a statement that he was convinced that Balausa had the potential to become the leading vanadium asset in the world.

“The Balausa project benefits from low capital and operating costs, good infrastructure, geographic advantages and a scale that can match the significantly growing demand for vanadium as its use in high-grade steel and flow batteries expands.”

Shares in FAR gained 10% on Tuesday to 37p each, giving the company a market capitalisation of £126.9-million.