Element 25 Ltd (ASX:E25) has confirmed the sale of the first parcel of material from its world-class Butcherbird Manganese Project to OM Materials (S) Pte Ltd (OMS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of OM Holdings Limited (ASX:OMH).
Under the offtake agreement terms, the material is within contract specifications of 30-35% manganese concentrate.
The Butcherbird mine site has now progressed to a 24-hour processing operation as part of the scheduled ramp-up activities to produce accelerated production volumes to facilitate the first shipment – which is planned for June 2021.
“Important milestone for project”
Notably, the company has achieved the sale within 12 months of the pre-feasibility study published in May 2020.
E25 managing director Justin Brown said: “Delivering the first material under the offtake agreement within 12 months of publishing the pre-feasibility study is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the project team.
“This is another important milestone for the project and company and we are excited to be heading for our first shipment of Butcherbird’s material to our offtake partners.”
Multi-stage development
The Butcherbird Project team will now turn its focus to the next stages of the multi-stage development strategy of the mine.
This includes a Stage 2 expansion of the concentrate business followed by a Stage 3 development to convert the concentrate material into high purity manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) for electric vehicle (EV) batteries to power the global transition away from fossil fuel-powered mobility.
Manganese is emerging as an increasingly important ingredient for EV batteries, with potential supply constraints for nickel and cobalt forcing battery manufacturers to look to high manganese cathodes to produce the vast amount of cathode material required by the EV industry in coming years.
Butcherbird is ideally placed to feed this potential demand, with advanced flowsheet development work undertaken in 2019 and 2020 confirming a simple, unique, ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure leach process for E25 ores which - when combined with offsets - will target the world’s first Zero Carbon Manganese for EV cathode manufacture.