The junior explorer has just announced a significant exploration target for its Victory Bore project in Western Australia's Mid West region it believes makes the 25km strike length of near contiguous mineralisation worthy of being called "world class".
The upside at Victory Bore is put at between 682 million tonnes and 1.19Bt grading 0.2-0.43% vanadium oxide across the Victory Bore and prospect areas.
That's on top of a total resource that was boosted by 56% to 321Mt at 0.39% last month.
The resource comprises 235Mt at 0.39% for Victory Bore proper and 86Mt at 0.42% at Unaly Hill along strike to the south.
Infill drilling along just 1.4km supports a measured and indicated resource of 87Mt.
Surefire's new managing director Paul Burton, most recently MD at vanadium-titanium-iron hopeful Tivan, said with a potential 1Bt, Victory Bore could be one of the largest vanadium resources globally.
In Australia, the largest resources include the 4.7Bt at 0.3% Speewah deposit that is being acquired by Tivan, and Richmond Vanadium's 1.8Bt at 0.36% Julia Creek project.
Other deposits of note in WA's Mid West include Australian Vanadium's 239Mt at 0.73% namesake project, and the neighbouring 154Mt at 0.8% Gabanintha project owned by Technology Metals Australia, both of which are being actively advanced for development.
Private resources include Todd Resources' 456Mt at 0.64% Balla Balla project in the Pilbara, and Atlantic's previously developed 210Mt at 0.5% Windimurra deposit.
Clearly, a lot of drilling is needed before Surefire can convert its exploration target into resources, but the company is already thinking about an initial development with a prefeasibility study in train.
A 2012 scoping study confirmed a preconcentration magnetic beneficiation process could be used to recover the vanadium from the magnetite ore, with processing and roasting producing a final leach recovery of 89%.
Low levels of titanium and deleterious elements have been reported. High purity alumina has also been flagged as a potential by-product worth further investigation.
With an "exponential increase in vanadium pentoxide" use over the past decade, in both steelmaking and in vanadium redox flow battery, and a location just 400km from the port of Geraldton, Burton is confident Surefire has a shot at development.
Offtake discussions targeting the battery sector are ongoing.
There are seven vanadium projects being advanced in Australia: four in WA, two in north-west Queensland, and one in the Northern Territory.
Surefire also owns the Yidby gold project, and Perenjori iron ore and rare earth elements projects, all in the Mid West region.
Surefire shares were up 20% at 1.8c today, valuing the company at $28 million.
The stock has traded in the range of 1.1-5.7c over the past year.
Surefire has $2.8 million cash remaining.
