When Alan Coyner and Jonathan Price completed their annual guesses about the top 10 minerals exploration projects in Nevada, four of the first five projects they identified didn't involve gold.
And the first name on their list the Gibellini vanadium project in Eureka County took a big step last week toward justifying the high marks given to the project by Coyner, administrator of the Nevada Division of Minerals, and Price, who heads the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.
American Vanadium Corp., the Vancouver company that is developing the Gibellini project, said a pilot project of metallurgical testing produced two products from the property's ores vanadium pentoxide, better known as "purple flake," and vanadium electrolyte.
"Purple flake" is a critical ingredient in the strengthening of steel. Vanadium electolyte is used in utility-sized battery systems for power grids.
Bill Radvak, president and chief executive of American Vanadium, said the tests amount to textbook results that validate the company's beliefs about the property.
They also helped validate the interest of investors. A couple of days after it announced the test results, American Vanadium said it will receive up to $1 million in fresh capital through a private placement of shares and warrants.
The Canadian company's consultants have estimated that development of a mine producing about 14 million pounds of "purple flake" a year would require an investment of $94 million.
Prices for vanadium pentoxide recently have been about $6.50 a pound. The company estimates operating costs at the Eureka County mine at about $3 a pound.
The company holds claims on about 6,600 acres on the property 27 miles south of Eureka. American Vanadium has been working on the property since 2006, but sporadic exploration by other companies has been under way since the 1950s.
Price and Coyner unveil their list of top Nevada prospects each winter at the annual meeting of the Northwest Mining Association, and they took a fresh look at the list during the annual meeting of the Nevada Mineral Exploration Coalition in Reno last week.
Along with the vanadium project, their list includes:
* Kings Valley, a lithium project under development by Western Lithium 60 mile north of Winnemucca.
* Long Canyon, a much-publicized gold project in the Pequop Mountains halfway between Wells and Wendover in Elko County. Newmont Mining Corp. owns it.
* Mount Hope, a molybdenum project under development by General Moly northwest of Eureka.
* Pumpkin Hollow, a copper prospect that's being developed by Nevada Copper southeast of Yerington.
The other five top exploration prospects identified by Price and Coyner all are potential gold mines:
* Sandman, a Newmont project near Winnemuca.
* South Arturo, a Barrick Gold Corp. and Goldorp project near the former Dee Mine site about 20 miles northwest of Elko.
* Spring Valley, a development by Midway Gold in Pershing County.
* Spruce Mountain, a project 50 miles east of Elko under development by Renaissance Gold.
* Wilco, an exploration project by Rye Patch Gold Corp. about six miles north of Lovelock.
Even though some of the most intriguing exploration projects in the state involve minerals other than gold, Coyner noted that gold sales accounted for more than $6.5 billion in minerals production in the state last year more than 85 percent of the total value of mineral production in the state. (Silver ranks a distant second.)
"Gold is the tail that wags the dog in Nevada," Coyner said.
