[Ferro-Alloys.com] Element25 Butcherbird Manganese Operations - Western Australia, Australia

QUARTERLY HIGHLIGHTS

•Butcherbird Expansion Project receives final regulatory approval to proceed, following formal Works Approval from WA Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER).

•Project now fully approved under WA Regulatory Framework to construct 1.1Mtpa manganese concentrate production operation after earlier approval for Mining Proposal and Mine Closure Plan from WA Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DEMIRS)1.

•Updated Butcherbird Expansion Feasibility Study confirms outstanding metrics2.

•Butcherbird manganese concentrate will be the primary feedstock for E25’s planned battery grade, high purity manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) processing facility in Louisiana, USA.

•E25 will also sell Butcherbird manganese concentrate product to customers in the manganese alloy and steel industries.

Battery Grade High Purity Manganese (HPMSM) Development – Louisiana, USA

•E25’s planned HPMSM facility in Louisiana formally awarded US$166 million (A$268M)3 U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) grant.

•Grant is in addition to US$115 million (A$185 million) in project funding secured from GM and Stellantis4.

MoU with Nissan Chemical Corporation for Tokyo Bay HPMSM development

•High-level Scoping Study for Tokyo Bay HPMSM development, examining factors including permitting, logistics, reagent supply, labour, capital and operating costs completed.

•MoU parties agreed to proceed to a more detailed Pre-Feasibility Study in accordance with MoU terms.

BUTCHERBIRD MANGANESE PROJECT, WA

E25’s planned expansion of its 100%-owned Butcherbird Manganese Mine in Western Australia to 1.1Mpta5 manganese concentrate production received the final statutory approval from the WA Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER), meaning the Butcherbird Expansion Project (BBX / Project) is fully approved under the Western Australian mining regulatory framework6.

An updated Feasibility Study for the Project released in January 20257 estimated a capital cost of A$64.8M with a pre-tax Net Present Value (NPV) of A$561M with a 96% pre-tax Internal Rate of Return (IRR), generating an average of A$70.5M per year cashflow over a mine life of more than 18 years.

Receipt of the Works Approval followed approval of BBX’s Mining Proposal and Mine Closure Plan by WA Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DEMIRS) as announced in January 20258 and enables construction to commence for the Butcherbird Expanded Project processing facility.

All other required approvals and access agreements are in place and established from Butcherbird’s Stage 1 pilot operations including water abstraction, heritage clearances, Native Title and pastoral agreements.

This final approval strengthens E25’s expansion plans and the Company will continue to finalise funding for BBX.

HPMSM REFINERY PROJECT – LOUISIANA, USA

In January 2025, E25 announced formal awarding and signing of a Grant Agreement for US$166 million (A$268 million) in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) under the Battery Materials Processing Grant Program9. This will support construction of E25’s proposed battery-grade high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) facility in Louisiana, USA, which will bring domestic production of a key critical battery raw material to the USA.

The grant award is in addition to the US$115 million already committed by offtake partners General Motors LLC (GM) and Stellantis N.V. (Stellantis)10.

The grant application was submitted under the DoE’s Battery Materials Processing Grant Program of the Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains, which is funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The program is designed to provide grants for battery materials processing to ensure that the United States has a viable battery materials processing industry. The grant forms a key component of E25’s financing strategy, and its execution team will now work to finalise the project schedule, subject to grant finalisation.

E25 plans to produce HPMSM from manganese ore sourced from its Butcherbird mine in Western Australia, which it will ship to Louisiana. It has developed an innovative, advanced processing flowsheet to convert Butcherbird manganese concentrate into HPMSM, a critical raw material for the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries. The proprietary flowsheet reduces energy consumption, virtually eliminates waste and delivers the lowest reported carbon intensity HPMSM globally11.

E25’s process offers a pathway to the delivery of expanding volumes of ethically sourced, traceable, transparent HPMSM supply to US markets. E25 plans to produce up to 135Kt per annum of HPMSM for US electric vehicle (EV) supply chains in a facility that is a first-of-its-kind processing facility in Louisiana.

The grant comprises a total of US$166,128,094 funding, broken into five budget periods, each relating to a staged phase of project execution. The structure of the grant is predicated on matching funding (cost-share) being provided by the Company for a total of US$166,128,095 in cost-share. The grant agreement outlines the tasks and milestones required for each budget period with associated reporting and approval requirements.

The milestones and stage gates were agreed between the DoE contracts team and the Company as part of the grant negotiation and award process, subsequent to the announcement that the project had been selected for the grant award.

The project is expected to create 400 jobs during construction and 144 full-time ongoing roles once production commences.

E25 is co-ordinating a process to secure the balance of funding for the project’s construction costs, which were estimated in the Company’s HPMSM Feasibility Study at US$289 million

SCOPING STUDY FOR TOKYO BAY HPMSM FACILITY

Following signing a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Nissan Chemical Corporation (NC) and NC Tokyo Bay Corporation (NCTB) to complete a Feasibility Study (FS) into a battery-grade HPMSM facility located at the existing NCTB site in Chiba prefecture, Japan (Facility)13, parties completed a high-level scoping study (Study) to examine the potential for E25 to construct the Facility at the Tokyo Bay site.

The Study examined a range of factors, including permitting, logistics, reagent supply, labour, capital and operating costs. The Study used the detailed information available from E25’s HPMSM Louisiana Project and utilised local knowledge about the Japanese market to factorise costs where direct estimates were not available.

Pleasingly, the Study confirmed the potential feasibility of the Facility and identified no fatal flaws. The MoU parties have agreed to proceed to a more detailed investigation of the project in accordance with the terms of the MoU.

• [Editor:tianyawei]