Major Milestone For Manganese Concentrate Producer
Element 25 Limited (ASX:E25) has loaded its first commercial shipment of manganese concentrate with the ship departing the Utah Point facility at Port Hedland in Western Australia.
This is the first cargo to be shipped from the company’s 100%-owned world class Butcherbird Manganese Project (Project) located in the Pilbara region of WA.
The ore will be delivered to the company’s offtake partner OM Materials (S) Pte Ltd (OMS), a wholly owned subsidiary of ASX listed company OM Holdings Limited,
The historic loading of approximately 27,000 tonnes of high quality manganese concentrate aboard the Handymax size vessel Shakespeare Bay is the culmination of an extraordinary achievement by both the construction and operations teams which have worked tirelessly to achieve this important milestone in the company’s journey to develop the Project as a globally significant producer of high quality manganese concentrate and high purity battery grade manganese sulphate (HPSM) in subsequent stages of project development.
“Today is a historic day for all the people who have worked tirelessly to bring this project to life, for Element 25 and for the Australian mining industry,” Managing Director, Justin Brown, said.
“It has been a testament to Australian ingenuity, persistence and hard work that Element 25 has managed to achieve this feat in such a short period of time with a Pre-Feasibility Study completed only 14 months ago.
{After thousands of man hours, multiple layers of permitting, engineering drawings, contracts, financing activities, and a healthy dose of passion and toil Stage 1 of our project has come to life.”
Mr Brown expressed great confidence in the future and the permanence of the Project.
“We fully intend for this to be the first step in a multi-stage growth journey for this world-class manganese project with the expansion of concentrate production as part of our Stage 2 plans to be followed by developing the processing infrastructure to produce battery grade Zero Carbon ManganeseTM products for the Li-Ion batteries which will power the electrification of the global vehicle fleet.”
The first trucks departed the Project on 8 June 2021 containing the first manganese concentrate produced from the Project. This material has been produced as part of the commissioning and ramp up of the Stage 1 processing plant which will produce a nominal 365Kt of high-quality manganese concentrate over a mine life of approximately 40 years prior to a proposed 3X expansion in Stage 2.
The Project team will now turn its focus to the next stages of the multi-stage development strategy of the Project including 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.3
For further information please visit: https://www.element25.com.au
