Element 25 Ltd (ASX:E25) is trading higher on fielding encouraging assays from March quarter drilling at the Butcherbird Project area in the Bangemall Basin adjacent to the eastern unconformable boundary of the Savory Basin, in central Western Australia.
The company conducted a reverse circulation drilling program to test for extensions to the known manganese resource areas comprising 34 holes for 904 metres targeting areas where there was no historical drilling.
This drilling primarily targeted the areas to the west and south of the Ilgarari Ridge deposit, with highlights including:
- extension of manganese mineralisation beyond defined resources;
- confirmation of multiple extensions to known manganese mineralisation;
- significant manganese mineralisation intersected where there is no EM response, the tool used for historical target generation; and
- potential for future discoveries not based on traditional EM signature.
There has been a positive response from investors with E25 shares as much as 14.3% higher in the first hour of trading to $0.64
The company will include the new information in the next resource model update for the global resource at Butcherbird with further drilling being planned to infill and better define mineralisation extensions and evaluate further extensions to mineralised trends.
Several successful programs
Several drilling programs have been conducted by E25 in the Bangemall Basin, which contains three major stratigraphic units of which the Ilgarari Formation is of primary commercial interest.
E25 had already identified extensive supergene manganese mineralisation which is being commercially exploited within mining lease M52/1074 to produce a high silica manganese oxide concentrate for export to international customers.
Geological information recorded as part of the current drilling program compares favourably with the existing drilling data in terms of geology and mineralised widths and grades of the ore zone, confirming the robustness of the current understanding of the manganese mineralisation in the area.
The drilling further confirms that further extensions to the known manganese mineral resources at the Butcherbird Project are likely once this new information is incorporated into the resource model.
Positive assays
This drilling is similar to previous programs in that it has identified broad widths of near-surface supergene enriched manganese oxide mineralisation similar in style to the currently mined areas at Yanneri Ridge deposit to the south.
Economic manganese mineralisation at Butcherbird typically comprises interacted bands of siliceous manganese and waste clay material. This habit lends itself to mechanical upgrading via crushing, washing and ore-sorting in line with current mining and processing operations.
There is nothing visually different about the newly discovered mineralisation in this program.
Focus on sustained nameplate production
E25’s Operations team is focused on delivering sustained nameplate production, while the Business Development team focuses on E25’s multi-stage development strategy, including a Stage 2 expansion of the concentrate business in parallel with the Stage 3 development of a conversion facility to convert the concentrate material into HPMSM for electric vehicle EV batteries to power the global transition away from fossil fuel powered mobility.
Manganese is becoming increasingly important for 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.
The project is ideally placed to feed this potential demand, with advanced flowsheet development work undertaken in 2019 and 2020 confirming a simple leach process for E25 ores which, when combined with offsets, will target the world’s first Zero-Carbon Manganese for EV cathode manufacture.
A scoping study was released in January 2022 to update the market prior to the release of a feasibility study, which is being finalised.