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[Ferro-Alloys.com] Australia’s manganese prospect

The Butcherbird project stands as one of Australia’s most significant manganese resources, boasting a global resource of 270mt, with 100mt already converted to reserves — underpinning an 18-year mine life based on current feasibility studies.

Butcherbird is a shallow mining operation utilising water for on-site processing, resulting in minimal environmental and social impact and highlighting its status as a low-carbon, ESG-compliant asset. As the demand for manganese surges — driven not only by steel production but by its crucial role in emerging battery technologies — Butcherbird is uniquely positioned to supply this essential mineral for decades to come, meeting the evolving needs of the electric vehicle supply chain while delivering long-term value to stakeholders.

With battery technologies increasingly relying on higher percentages of manganese over traditional cathode materials like nickel and cobalt, Element 25 (ASX: E25) is positioned to deliver the critical minerals the supply chain desperately needs.

The Australian Mining Review speaks with Element 25 managing director Justin Brown about the company’s flagship Butcherbird manganese mine in WA and high purity manganese sulphate (HPMSM) facility in Louisiana in the US.

AMR: What is the strategic importance of Butcherbird and its role in the global battery supply chain?

JB: Australia is one of the global regions that has good manganese ore inventories and Butcherbird is the largest onshore resource in Australia, making it a key player in the supply of manganese as a critical battery raw material.

Other jurisdictions where manganese is available include places like South Africa, Gabon, Ghana, Brazil, China and India. They are all geopolitically challenging regions from the perspective of developing secure, ESG-compliant supply chains of battery raw materials into global markets, so Australia is key and Butcherbird is key within Australia.

We have done an extensive amount of work over about eight years to develop a flow sheet to convert our manganese ore at Butcherbird into HPMSM, which is the raw material that the battery makers need. We can convert our ore into HPMSM, with industry-leading ESG credentials around carbon, waste production and circular utilisation of the resource through our unique flow sheet, which basically has a zero waste outcome in the perfect conditions.

This is a technology that we are making available to other jurisdictions. For example, in in the case of our partnership with General Motors and Stellantis, we’re building a refinery in Louisiana to supply the US electric vehicle market. We’re also in discussions with our partners in Japan and Europe to do the same.

The long-term vision is that Butcherbird will be an end-to-end, vertically integrated supply of ore to HPMSM, from a geopolitically stable part of the world into global markets that does not require Chinese involvement, which is important in terms of supply chain security for a number of key jurisdictions, particularly the US.

AMR: Along with the mine plan, what are the processing expectations like?

JB: The plant we are currently building at Butcherbird is a plant focused on the first half of the process. We mine the ore, and we do a number of processing stages on site, which includes crushing, screening and then beneficiating the ore through washing and dense media separation and that produces the lump concentrate. We then ship that as a bulk commodity out through Port Headland, and that can either go to the steel manufacturing industry through smelting facilities that convert it into silica manganese alloy, or it can go to the Louisiana refinery to be converted into high purity manganese sulfate for battery applications. We do part of the process on site and part of the process at the refinery in the US.

AMR: How are shifting global supply chain dynamics impacting mine plan development and project execution as a whole?

JB: The business is being built in two parts. We are moving forward with our plans to expand the mining operation of Butcherbird to deliver a feedstock into traditional steel markets. We produce a product which is a medium grade manganese concentrate, which is quite well received in the existing traditional supply chains around producing silica manganese alloys for steel manufacturing. It’s a business that stands on its own two feet independent of the battery supply chain.

The second part of the business is the construction of refineries to convert the material that we produce at Butcherbird into HPMSM.

On the steel supply chain, there’s probably not a great deal of impact other than the ebb and flow of global economic activity, which drives steel consumption. On the battery side, it’s a more nuanced answer, where trade policies have an impact on regional competitiveness — for example, with tariffs in the US on the import of Chinese HPMSM. Currently, if you’re an electric vehicle manufacturer and you want to take control of your raw material supply chains, you really only have one source of HPMSM, which is China. As a result, the other part of our strategy is to become an alternative source of supply to allow those OEMs to diversify their supply chains away from just an exclusive reliance on China, which is the current state of play.

AMR: How do you see the critical minerals deal that was signed between the US and Australia affecting things, whether it be positively or negatively, at the Butcherbird project?

JB: It’s a really important step and a positive one. We’ve been in discussions with the US Government for some time now, and that culminated in the award of a grant of US$166m to the construction cost of the refinery in the US. The critical mineral partnership obviously extends that alliance between Australia and the US.

The US recognises Australia as a key source of critical raw materials, and that includes manganese. The critical minerals partnership opens up a pathway for both the US and the Australian governments to make further investments into projects like Butcherbird, so it definitely expands on the potential to access capital to grow these two parts of the business.

• [Editor:tianyawei]