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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - June 28, 2024) - Flying Nickel Mining Corp. (TSXV: FLYN) (OTCQB: FLYNF) ("Flying Nickel" or the "Company") announces that further to its joint press releases with Nevada Vanadium Mining Corp. ("Nevada Vanadium") dated August 23, 2022, and October 7, 2022, the proposed acquisition of all the issued and outstanding common shares of Nevada Vanadium by Flying Nickel by way of a court-approved plan of arrangement (the "Transaction" or the "Arrangement") continues to progress. An Annual General and Special Meeting of Shareholders of both companies to vote on the Transaction has been set for July 10, 2024. Further details are available in the Joint Management Information Circular dated May 24, 2024 of Flying Nickel and Nevada Vanadium (the "Circular"), available on www.sedarplus.ca.
The Transaction was delayed primarily due to staff turnover at the end of 2022, a change in auditors during December 2022, and also a change in fiscal year end from December 31 to March 31 effective for the 15 months ended March 31, 2023.
The Company also filed an amended technical report on www.sedarplus.ca for Nevada Vanadium's Gibellini Project with an effective date of September 27, 2023, on October 10, 2023. The amendments were principally to re-address the technical report to Flying Nickel. Subsequently, an additional amended technical report was filed on www.sedarplus.ca on February 13, 2024. The additional amendments were primarily to provide: 1) information on work performed on the project and visits by the report author to the site, 2) clarifications on the evaluation of the vanadium price used in the report, 3) a figure showing the project mining claims location relative to each other, nearby towns and infrastructure, 4) relocation of the list of mining claims from the body of the report to an appendix, 5) a statement clarifying that Flying Nickel has not done any exploration or drilling on the Gibellini Project, and 6) a multi-phase budget to complete all the recommended Project development work (geologic, drilling, metallurgical and pre-feasibility study) included in the technical report.
In making its recommendations to acquire Nevada Vanadium, the Company's board of directors (the "Flying Nickel Board") considered a number of factors including the following:
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Metals and Geographic Diversification: The Arrangement will provide Flying Nickel with the opportunity for asset diversification, by expanding Flying Nickel's focus from nickel exploration to include vanadium in the critical minerals space, while also providing the opportunity for geographic diversification to span both Canada and the United States. Nevada Vanadium is focused on advancing its vanadium resources in Nevada, USA, while Flying Nickel is advancing its nickel focused project in Manitoba, Canada. Diversification should also appeal to a broader range of prospective investors, given the combined company's intended focus on nickel and vanadium.
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Rising Demand for Vanadium in Energy Storage and Renewable Energy: Vanadium is a crucial material in the manufacturing of Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries (VRFBs). In the near future, these batteries have the potential to become a preferred choice for grid energy storage due to their scalability, long cycle life, and ability to rapidly discharge and recharge. With a rising global push towards renewable energy, the demand for grid-scale energy storage systems is expected to increase, thereby driving the demand for vanadium.
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Increasing Expansion of Electric Vehicle (EV) Market: Not only does vanadium have the potential to become a key material for energy storage solutions, but it also has potential uses in the EV market. Researchers are exploring the potential of vanadium-based batteries in EVs due to their superior energy density and faster charging capabilities compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries. If this research yields successful results, the EV market could become a significant consumer of vanadium in the long-term.
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Pricing of Metals: Flying Nickel views this as an opportune time to invest in a vanadium project due to increasing global demand and constrained supply from Russia and China.
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Greater Financing Opportunities and Liquidity: The combined company is expected to have greater funding opportunities in the form of equity or debt financing, government funding and strategic investments, which may otherwise be unavailable to Flying Nickel alone. The common shares of the combined company are also expected to have greater trading liquidity due to the increased number of issued and outstanding shares, all of which are intended to be listed on the TSX Venture Exchange, subject to receiving final approval of such exchange.
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Cost Synergies: Public company administrative costs, and other corporate costs, are expected to be reduced for the combined company as a result of there being only one public company resulting from the Arrangement.
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Government Policies and Regulations: Many governments around the world are introducing policies to support the renewable energy sector, which in turn is expected to increase the demand for vanadium. In addition, regulations aimed at reducing carbon emissions are forcing industries to adopt cleaner energy sources, which is also likely to positively impact the vanadium market.
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Fairness Opinion: The Flying Nickel Board received the Sequeira Partners Fairness Opinion dated as of October 6, 2022, which concluded as at the date thereof and subject to the assumptions, limitations and qualifications contained therein, that the Arrangement consideration to be paid by Flying Nickel pursuant to the Arrangement is fair, from a financial point of view, to Flying Nickel.