More and more manganese: decoding Black Canyon’s (ASX:BCA) Flanagan Bore project

Highlights:

• Increases in the MRE tonnage, contained manganese, and JORC classification confidence at the company’s flagship Flanagan Bore Project are unmissable.
• Black Canyon is eyeing to tap the battery manufacturing industry by producing High Purity Manganese Sulphate Monohydrate (HPMSM).
• Recently, the company produced manganese sulphate from Flanagan Bore manganese oxide samples with 32.3% Mn content in test works, equivalent to >99% manganese sulphate purity.
• Let us explore the Flanagan Bore project of the company.

Black Canyon Limited’s (ASX:BCA) flagship Flanagan Bore manganese project has been on a roll with developments one after another.

The leachability of Flanagan Bore manganese oxide samples had already been confirmed by Black Canyon, from which recently a high-grade manganese sulphate product (>99% manganese sulphate purity) has been crystallised.

Data source: BCA update

Flanagan Bore overview

The Flanagan Bore project is part of the Company’s Joint Venture with Carawine Resources Ltd (ASX:CWX).

Data source: BCA update

High on manganese sulphate results

By producing manganese sulphate with a 32.3% Mn content (equivalent to >99% manganese sulphate purity) in the test works, highly comparable to the typical 32.2% Mn content of HPMSM, a significant milestone has been achieved by the company.

This will be followed by next round of more detailed manganese sulphate testwork towards optimising the leaching and crystallisation process. Also, a critical purification phase to remove other elemental impurities will be included, as required by the cathode active material (CAM) end users.

Thanks to a significant Mineral Resource having promise of a multi-decade mining operation at Flanagan Bore, Black Canyon is targeting production of

1. manganese concentrate to be sold in the steel industry, and
2. manganese sulphate for the growing EV battery market.

Higher grade zone: what it means

The manganese deposits from Flanagan Bore have been outperforming with considerable increases in resource tonnes and contained manganese. We explain why.

With improving of outcropping higher grade zone, the average has reached 13% Mn while the size increasing to 40 Mt.

The company says that early mining years will greatly benefit from this higher-grade zone, as potential cashflow stands high chances of being maximised during the start-up phases of a mining operation.

Further the company says that the deposits have continued to be immensely continuous. Impressively, more than half of the updated MRE now falls within the ‘highest confidence’ ‘Measured’ category.

The way ahead 

Source: © Panama00 | Megapixl.com 

The next 12 months or so will be transformational, says Black Canyon, which continues to execute a host of activities to deliver a robust manganese mine feasibility study, undertake exploration activities, and scope the development of high-purity manganese sulphate for the EV industry.

About Black Canyon

Black Canyon entered into an agreement with Carawine Resources Limited (ASX:CWX) to own a majority interest in the Carawine JV Project, Western Australia.

Spanning ~800sqkm, the company says the Carawine Project is situated in a proven and producing manganese belt.

Other exploration licences adjacent to the project increase the total land holdings to an upwards of 2,400sqkm.

Not only manganese, the project also boasts hosting multiple copper occurrences, case in point, the Western Star prospect, which comprises a large zone pertaining to surface copper enrichment.

Good for Black Canyon, manganese and copper enjoy continued attractive fundamentals amid growing utilisation in the battery mineral sector in spite of the challenging supply conditions.

BCA shares were trading at AU$0.240 midday on 20 December 202