Element 25 Ltd (ASX:E25) has brought forward plans to modify plant engineering following a temporary processing plant outage at its Butcherbird Manganese Project in WA.
The halt was triggered by a logwasher failure on Friday, November 18, and will nominally reduce the tonnage in the manganese producer's planned November shipment.
There were no injuries or damage to other components, but because the logwasher is a critical part of the processing plant, E25 has temporarily ceased operations at the hub while repairs are made.
The logwasher is not considered a known wear part, so the failure is considered unusual and unexpected.
Spares are not held on-site, so E25 needs to source the replacement from outside its West Aussie manganese hub.
The company has already commissioned replacements from the original equipment manufacturer in Northern Ireland, and preparations are being made to airfreight the parts to site as quickly as possible in a bid to minimise impact on ore production volumes.
Local fabrication alternatives are also being pursued to ensure against potential long lead times as the parts make their way from overseas to site.
November ore shipment
E25’s manganese ore shipment – planned for late November 2021 – remains on track, but total volumes will be reduced from an expected 47,000 tonnes to about 43,000 tonnes.
The bulk vessel for this shipment, the MV Top Fair, is expected to arrive in Port Hedland on or around November 29 and will berth and load the cargo between November 27 and December 1.
While this plant outage is unexpected, it coincides with a period of planned downtime designated for December 2021.
During this time, E25 intends to undertake engineering modifications, designed to improve plant performance and maximise the production of concentrate volumes.
The modification work aims to improve plant access for maintenance, manage material flow through the plant, reduce wear on key components, improve noise and dust control and adjust the overall site layout to increase operational and maintenance scheduling flexibility.
The modifications are expected to reduce the need for manual labour and facilitate more proactive and efficient maintenance activities to improve plant uptime and capacity, thereby increasing total production volumes.
The timeline for these remediation and modification activities is fluid and depends on a range of factors outside E25’s control, but the company is targeting plant restart in the middle of December 2021.
About Element 25
Element 25 Ltd (ASX:E25) is developing a world-class manganese resource at the 100%-owned Butcherbird Project in Western Australia to produce high-quality manganese concentrate for export markets.
The Butcherbird Manganese Deposit is Australia’s largest onshore manganese resource, comprising large tonnages of near-surface manganese oxide ore across seven deposits.
The project rubs shoulders with some key infrastructure, with a gas pipeline and main bitumen highway passing directly adjacent to and through the mineralised envelope.