NAIF provides $50 million loan facility to expand Element 25’s Pilbara manganese project

Minister for Northern Australia Madeleine KIng has announced that the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) will provide a loan of up to $50 million to help Element 25 expand its manganese project in Pilbara, Western Australia and serve growing demand from the electric vehicle battery market. 

According to a statement from King on Tuesday, the loan will enable the company to increase manganese concentrate production threefold to 1.1 million tonnes per annum, “adding an estimated $909 million to the Pilbara’s Gross Regional Product.” 

It is estimated the expanded project will create approximately 150 construction jobs and 230 operational positions over a predicted 18-year lifecycle. 

Manganese is an element on the federal government’s list of critical minerals, last updated in February 2024.

The metal is also deemed a critical mineral in nations including the US, Japan and South Korea, and has industrial uses including in alloys, in glass making, and in fertilisers.

Element 25 will primarily use manganese concentrate from Butcherbird as feedstock for its planned battery-grade, high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) processing facility in Louisiana, USA. Manganese concentrate not required for its US operation “will be sold to customers in the manganese alloy and steel industries.”

The company’s Managing Director Justin Brown said that feasibility studies confirmed Butcherbird “as a long-life manganese concentrate production hub from its 274 million tonne resource, which is integral to our plans for HPMSM in the USA as well as potentially other locations around the world. 

“This support from NAIF is critical to our plans to expand Butcherbird to meet this growing demand as the world continues to shift towards electrification and energy transition. Batteries will potentially use as much as 10 times more manganese if battery chemistry shifts towards lithium manganese rich, or LMR, chemistries as recently announced by various tier 1 OEMs and battery makers including General Motors, Ford and Posco FM.”

Picture: render of the planned Louisiana HPMSM facility (credit Element 25)