Element 25 Limited’s (ASX:E25) plans to fast track the development of its manganese concentrate export operation at the company’s 100% Butcherbird Manganese Project in Western Australia is reportedly advancing on time and on budget.
Managing Director Justin Brown says detailed engineering design work undertaken subsequent to the Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) announced in May 2020 has identified a number of specific items of equipment for integration into the beneficiation plant at the Project.
In certain instances, these key components have significant manufacturing and delivery lead times. In order to meet what is a contracted timeframe by typical mine development standards, the company has placed orders and associated down payments with a number of suppliers.
Mr Brow said this represents a key milestone in the Project development strategy which provides certainty on delivery schedules to match the planned commencement of operations in the first quarter of calendar 2021.
The placing of orders also provides certainty on pricing. The pricing obtained in the firm quotations are, in aggregate, below the budgeted prices detailed in the PFS.
Delivery of these key items is currently scheduled for mid-December 2020.
We have an aggressive delivery timeline for the Butcherbird Project which has us in production in the first Quarter of calendar 2021,” Mr Brown said.
“It is pleasing to see these key milestones being met in keeping with that timeline.”
The first stage of the processing plant comprises a jaw crusher which has been sized, selected and ordered from Max Plant, a Western Australian company.
The second stage of the process is a dry screen to remove fine grained clay material which will be utilised in civil construction works and/or be disposed of in a dry-stack tail facility.
To facilitate efficient optical ore sorting, the log washer provides an attrition scrubbing step which removes any remaining clays and physically breaks down a portion of the non manganiferous shale material. A logwasher has been ordered from CDE Global Ltd in Northern Ireland.
There are several vibrating screens that are included in the flowsheet design to manage sizing of the plant feed both to remove waste material and to optimise feed size ranges to allow effective ore sorting. These have been ordered from Vipro out of South Africa.
The Butcherbird Manganese Project is a world class manganese resource with current JORC resources in excess of 263 Mt of manganese ore. The company has recently completed a Pre-Feasibility Study with respect to developing the deposit to produce manganese concentrate for export to generate early cashflow with a modest capital requirement.
The outstanding economics and low capital hurdle of less than A$15 million will allow the company to develop the project in a relatively short timeframe.
