Montezuma Mining Company (ASX:MZM) has upgraded its resource to JORC 2012 standards for its 100% owned Butcherbird Manganese Project located in Western Australia.
The global resource including all deposits drilled to date increased 2.7% and now stands at 180 million tonnes at 10.8% manganese.
This also includes a maiden Indicated resource at Yanneri Ridge of 22.4 million tonnes at 12.0% manganese.
This Indicated resources at Yanneri Ridge will be the focus of initial scoping studies on completion of metallurgical flowsheet design program being conducted by the CSIRO.
Justin Brown, director, commented: “Upgrading the Butcherbird manganese resource to JORC 2012 and the conversion of parts of Yanneri Ridge from Inferred to Indicated categories adds to our confidence that this is a technically robust mineral deposit with simple geology, low strip ratios and significant potential to underpin the Company’s transition from explorer to developer in the medium term.”
Butcherbird Manganese Project
The Butcherbird Manganese Project hosts Australia’s largest onshore manganese resource.
The project comprises of large tonnages of near surface manganese oxide ore across eight deposits.
The current resource upgrade has increased the global resource from a JORC 2004 classification to JORC 2012 classification.
Manganese in the form of electrolytic manganese dioxide (EMD) is a key ingredient in several types of widely used battery technologies.
Earlier this year, Montezuma completed studies into the production of high purity manganese products from Butcherbird with positive results.
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The project also has some excellent infrastructure advantages with a gas pipeline and main bitumen highway passing directly adjacent to and through the project.
Project portfolio
While Montezuma recently outlined it would be divesting its Yarmarna Project located in Western Australia, it holds a number of multi-commodity exploration and mining tenements in Western Australia and France.
Its portfolio includes:
- Yamarna Gold Project, Western Australia;
- Holleton Gold Project, Western Australia;
- Butcherbird Manganese Project, Western Australia;
- Butcherbird Copper Project, Western Australia;
- Lake Johnston Lithium Project, Western Australia;
- Pinnacles Cobalt Project, Western Australia;
- Green Dam Project, Western Australia;
- Mt Padbury Project, Western Australia; and
- Bonneval Gold Project, France.