Accelerate is focusing on this up and coming battery metal

Accelerate has firmed up its manganese ambitions by exercising its option to acquire the manganese and iron ore rights for the Braeside West and Ripon Hills East projects.

The acquisition locks up a swathe of ground with prospective manganese geology just 70km north of the world-class Woodie Woodie manganese mining operations in the East Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Ripon Hills East is also located adjacent to the Ripon Hills manganese deposit.

Due diligence carried out by Accelerate Resources (ASX:AX8) confirmed the locations of historical drill holes returning near-surface results such as 8m at 37.4% manganese and 6m at 39.9% manganese along with surface mineralisation including multiple historical rock chip samples with +50% manganese within the project area.

Large zones of undrilled manganese outcropping at surface were also identified during initial reconnaissance mapping.

“We are excited by the opportunity to explore within a world class region for high-grade manganese, a critical mineral for battery and steel production with forecast demand shortfalls,” managing director Yaxi Zhan said.

The historical data review and the field trip demonstrate the potential for a large-scale, high-grade manganese project.

“This timely, high value strategy is in a proven yet largely underexplored area with excellent infrastructure, and we believe there are significant opportunities for new discoveries.”

High purity manganese is being used increasingly as a substitute for expensive and controversial cobalt in nickel-cobalt-manganese battery cathodes, an important consideration given that cathodes make up a significant portion of the cost of producing rechargeable batteries.

Finding and developing new supplies of the metal is also critical given the potential for Southern African supply disruptions and the wind-down of the Groote Eyland operations in the Northern Territory.

Projects

Both Braeside West and Ripon Hills East are contained within similar unexplored host stratigraphy with indications of manganese deposited in streams within Ripon Hills.

Braeside West covers 139sqkm and offers the opportunity for the company to identify manganese mineralisation of similar nature to deposits at nearby projects such as Woodie Woodie, where 41 deposits have been mined since 1950.

Previous exploration has identified manganese mineralisation and Accelerate will look to reprocess that data, confirm geological mapping and interpretation, and validate once the application is granted.

Ripon Hills East covers 48sqkm and has had little historical exploration despite the presence of favourable Woodie Woodie-style north-south trending structures and mappable surface manganese mineralisation.

Next steps

Accelerate plans to start airborne high resolution photography and Lidar survey to support target generation.

It will also continue to capture historical data and merge it with new high quality airborne imagery and digital terrain models to generate new targets for sampling and drilling.

Priority targets will be generated for immediate follow-up and drilling.

This article was developed in collaboration with Accelerate Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.