Bryah Resources drilling to define manganese resource

Special Report: Bryah Resources (ASX:BYH) has kicked off infill drilling aimed at helping define a manganese resource for the Brumby Creek prospect and Horseshoe South mine.

This follows successful drilling at the Brumby Creek prospect within its Bryah Basin project in Western Australia that returned high-grade results of up to 30m at 33.6 per cent manganese from 9m.

Bryah also plans to start diamond drilling in early November to acquire core for density and beneficiation test work.

Managing director Neil Marston told Stockhead that the company has accelerated its field work to enable the completion of manganese resource estimates for the Brumby Creek, Black Hill and Horseshoe South areas in early 2021.

“This will be an important milestone as we progress towards future manganese mining operations,” he noted.

“We have commenced ground geophysical surveys and infill resource drilling programs this week at the historic Horseshoe South manganese mine site and the recently discovered Brumby Creek Prospect.

“Next month a diamond drilling program will be undertaken to obtain core samples for beneficiation test work, where we hope to demonstrate that using simple crushing and screening processes, we can upgrade the manganese content in the ore to produce a quality product.”

Marston added that the geophysical surveys being trialled are also important as it would help the company in exploring its vast land package for manganese masked by shallow cover.

All activities are funded by partner OM Manganese (OMM), a subsidiary of large-scale miner and processor OM Holdings, as part of Stage 2 of their joint venture.

Direct shipping manganese

The Bryah Basin JV project covers about 660sqkm in central Western Australia close to several mining operations such as Sandfire Resources’ (ASX:SFR) high-grade DeGrussa copper-gold mine and Westgold Resources’ (ASX:WGX) Fortnum gold mine.

bryah resources manganese drilling — Bryah Resources tenement locations. Pic: Supplied

In 2019, OMM funded $500,000 of project expenditure that yielded highly encouraging manganese drilling results, leading to a decision to proceed with the joint venture.

Under the second stage, OMM can progressively fund $2m of exploration expenditure in four tranches of $500,000 each, to earn up to a 51 per cent interest in the JV by 30 June 2022.

Manganese is essential in steel production, increasing aluminium’s resistance to corrosion, as an additive in petrol and for newer alkaline batteries. Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, revealed recently that Tesla will soon begin using high purity manganese (HPM) to power its next generation of electric vehicles.

“Parallel with this manganese development is our on-going gold and copper exploration focus, as we ultimately strive to find a significant copper/gold deposit in the Bryah Basin,” Marston added.

Recent aircore drilling in the broader project area, which covers 1,185sqkm, has identified four high-priority gold-copper prospects. Laboratory results of this drilling are expected shortly.

This article was developed in collaboration with Bryah 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.