A lot of the excitement in the junior markets in the last few years has
been about the “energy minerals” – graphite, lithium and, increasingly,
cobalt. This excitement is driven by Li-ion battery technology which seems to
be powering more and more of our daily lives.
Having high energy density batteries is a huge part of the equation for
everything from electric vehicles to efficient mass storage solutions to get
past the intermittency problems of wind and solar electrical generation. In
the quest for higher energy densities and lower costs, materials scientists
have tried many metal combinations: battery technology does not stand still.
Ever heard of electrolytic manganese dioxide? Neither had I until I spoke
with Martin Kepman of Maganese X Energy (V.MN)
and Rick Mills from aheadoftheherd.com.
Nor had I been aware of the huge potential of lithium/manganese batteries.
Manganese is predicted to become a more than US$30B market in rechargeable
Lithium Ion batteries by 2020 according to Taiyou Research.
“The problem battery makers have is that cobalt and nickel are expensive.”
said Kepman. And new battery technologies using Lithiumnated Manganese Oxide
turn out to have higher power densities at lower costs in a more stable
environment.
“Plus,” added Mills, “Most of the cobalt in the world is from Africa and
it is bought and processed by China.” Strategic metals are just that,
strategic. In a complicated world relying on a single, overseas, source for
any metal is risky. While there are North American prospects for cobalt,
right now it is at risk.
So is manganese. “In North America there are no operating manganese mines
or suppliers.” said Mills. “Worldwide China controls the supply of EMD.”
EMD is used for batteries, EMM, electrolytic manganese metal, goes into
steel. In fact, you cannot make steel without it. Manganese is absolutely
critical to a modern industrial economy.
At the moment there is no North American source of manganese. As Mills put
it, “There is no viable manganese deposit in North America.”
Which makes Manganese X Energy’s Battery Hill New Brunswick deposit all
the more interesting. “New Brunswick is a hotbed of manganese.” said Kepman,
“Back in the 1950’s Sidwell came up with an estimated 40 million tons of
potential manganese deposits. They were seeing an average grade of 9%
manganese. Now these are historical estimates. But it seems to be a fair
assumption that we will see 9-12% manganese and, say, 30 million tons. But,
to start, we are going for 10 million tons with a significant exploration
upside for the property.”
A quick look at the Manganese X website confirms that this historical work
and the estimates taken from it have been updated to the 43-101 standards,
“In early 2016, Perry MacKinnon Consulting prepared a National Instrument (NI)
43-101 Technical Report on the Manganese Occurrences within Exploration
Licence 5816 located near Woodstock, New Brunswick. The purpose of the report
was to provide a comprehensive independent assessment of the manganese
potential of the Battery Hill property. The report reviews and discusses the
results of both historic and current surface work along with drilling that
was conducted in 2011. The recent fieldwork and drilling were supervised by
Perry MacKinnon, P. Geo, who is a qualified person under the terms of NI
43-101.”
As well as the Technical Report, Manganse X on February
14, 2017 reported additional exploratory drilling on its property. In
that news release Kepman stated, “We are very encouraged by the results of
our initial drill program on the property, which confirmed significant
thicknesses of manganese mineralization. The continuity, grade and near
surface nature of the mineralization are all very positive. We are currently
planning another diamond drilling program to better define the Battery Hill
deposit and preliminary metallurgical test work to assess processing options
”
In our interview Kepman expanded on the metallurgy. “Bottom line is the
metallurgical process. How do we process? That determines the CAPEX for the
project. We are working with Kingston Metallurgical and other companies to
get the right flow sheet.”
“We want to purify our manganese to a very high state.” said Kepman. “The
manganese is found in bands with iron. We need to separate the iron from the
manganese which is highly magnetized. In addition, our expert team is
presently in the process of investigating some very innovative, economical,
cost saving, environmentally friendly, processes which we anticipate will be
very price competitive within the North American market”
Kepman is optimistic that Battery Hill will succeed. “Manganese price has
increased 65% year over year. We need to prove we have what we say we have.
We have the drill results and now we go on to Phase 2: a Preliminary Economic
Assessment and an updated 43-101.”
More drilling is required but with demand for manganese increasing, so
long as the metallurgy comes out right, Manganese X Energy is poised to
become the sole North American manganese producer in the next few years. It
would be an excellent position to be in.
At time of writing Manganese X Energy was trading at $0.21 with 41,185,420
shares outstanding for a market cap of 8.5 million dollars.
