Developing the Butcherbird high purity manganese project

Abstract

Summary Element 25 Limited is developing the Butcherbird High Purity Manganese Project located approximately 130km south of Newman in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The project hosts Australia’s largest onshore manganese deposit containing 263 Mt grading 10% manganese. The ore occurs as multiple supergene deposits which are the product of weathering of a regionally extensive basal shallow marine manganiferous shale. The resource was defined with a combination of airborne TEM, mapping and drilling. Significant exploration upside remains to expand the known resources. Element 25 is undertaking a Pre-Feasibility on the development of the Butcherbird Project using a hydrometallurgical flowsheet to produce high purity manganese metal and battery grade manganese sulphate. The production of manganese metal using electrowinning requires significant electricity. The project will likely use a combination of gas generation from the goldfields gas pipeline which crosses the project and renewable energy generation using wind and solar. The project will be an Australian first in terms of downstream processing of manganese metal and sulphate.