Element 25 has passed a critical milestone as it marches towards production at its lucrative Butcherbird manganese project in Western Australia. The aspiring producer has finalised an access agreement with the local pastoral lease holder at Bulloo Downs, paving the way for the grant of the company’s mining lease over the project.
Element 25 Managing Director, Justin Brown, said: “E25 is very pleased to be able to report this important milestone…. it paves the way for the grant of a Mining Lease over the planned production area and is a critical development step for E25”.
The signing of the agreement with Ms Chandra Ridley, owner of the Bulloo Downs pastoral lease on which the project sits, represents the final stakeholder access agreement for the developing operation. It allows the mining lease application to be granted – a move that has been more than two years in the making.
The agreement sets out a framework for Element 25 and Bulloo Downs to work together and even includes the possibility of appropriate contracting opportunities and milestone cash payments as the operation moves into production.
The Butcherbird manganese project is located 115 km south of Newman in the iconic Pilbara region of Western Australia and hosts an impressive manganese resource of more than 260 million tonnes of ore. The project also has outstanding access to infrastructure, with the Great Northern Hwy and Goldfield’s Gas Pipeline running through the mining area, simplifying both the access and the potential development of the project.
In anticipation of the mining lease approval, Element 25 recently completed a pre-feasibility study over the Butcherbird deposits. The study shows the project could be rapidly brought into production by utilising a low-cost flow-sheet that will see a simple concentrate for export, generating early cash-flows.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Element 25’s project is its estimated capex which sits at a paltry A$15 million.
The second phase of development planned for Butcherbird is a little more ambitious but can potentially be self-funded through the company’s export earnings. This involves a ramping up of production and the construction of a high-purity manganese production hub to manufacture a product suitable for use in the emerging EV battery market.
With impending approval of the Butcherbird mining lease, Element 25 has now cleared the way for it to swing into the mining approvals process - there is an air of expectation now that Element 25 will most likely make that difficult leap from explorer to producer – a leap that most explorers fail to make.
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