Element 25 Ltd (ASX:E25) has commenced an exploration aircore drilling program as part of the ongoing pre-feasibility study (PFS) at its Butcherbird Manganese Project in Western Australia.
The target area has been defined based on the results of a detailed, ground based gravity survey conducted in 2018.
Other PFS work progressing include the Native Title Agreement where key terms have been agreed and final execution is pending, underground water investigations, and flora and fauna studies.
Notably, no threatened ecological communities, priority ecological communities or threatened flora has been recorded.
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With regard to mine planning, preliminary work has commenced on the updated 2019 resource estimate.
This work includes open pit optimisation, mine design and mine scheduling and results from this work will be used for contractor pricing estimates for the PFS.
A second round of open pit optimisation, design and scheduling is planned at the end of the PFS, which will form the basis of a maiden ore reserve.
Recent resource upgrade boosts project potential
Last month, Element 25 confirmed the world-class status of the Butcherbird High Purity Manganese Project with a 34% increase in the manganese resource to 26.3 million tonnes.
A revised resource estimate has been prepared for four of the seven known manganese deposits at the project in the Pilbara region - Coodamudgie, Mundawindi, Richies and Yanneri Ridge.
The Butcherbird resource now stands at 263 million tonnes at 10% manganese and this will underpin calculation of a maiden reserve.