Butcherbird
The Butcherbird Manganese Deposit is Australia’s largest onshore manganese resource1 comprising large tonnages of near surface manganese oxide ore in seven deposits.
The Project also has some excellent infrastructure advantages with a gas pipeline and main bitumen highway passing directly adjacent to and through the mineralised envelope.
The mineralisation occurs as supergene enrichment of a regional scale basal manganese shale which underlies much of the Project area. The shale beds are gently folded and where the folds approach the surface topography, supergene processes have significantly upgraded the manganese content to form a potential feedstock for further upstream processing.
Project Highlights
- Australia’s largest onshore manganese deposit.
- >260 Mt of manganese ore.*
- Excellent local infrastructure.
- 100% owned by Element 25 Limited.
- Low risk mining jurisdiction.
- Mining Lease Application lodged February 2018.
- Scoping Study completed.
- Pre-Feasibility Study Commenced.
*Mineral Resource (Updated 2019)
Simple Geology
The geology and hence mining at Butcherbird are exceedingly simple. The ore zone at Yanneri Ridge is at surface, dips shallowly to the north resulting in a very low strip ratio estimated at 0.2:1.
The uniform grade distribution means that the entire ore zone is mined for processing, with no need for grade control or selectivity.
Processing Breakthrough
A new process flowsheet developed in collaboration with CSIRO for the unique Butcherbird ores means that they can be leached into solution at ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure with high level of selectivity and very rapid leach kinetics with approximately 95% of the manganese extracted in around 30 minutes to produce a 90% pure manganese solution.
This liquor is then further purified and then either put through a crystalliser to produce high purity manganese sulphate for use in lithium ion battery cathodes or put through an electrolysis plant to produce electrolytic manganese metal both of which represent high purity high value manganese products.
1Element 25 ASX release dated 17 April 2019
