Electric Metals (USA) (TSX-V:EML) has kicked off a multi-workstream optimisation program at its North Star Manganese Project in Minnesota to strengthen project economics ahead of prefeasibility studies.
The program comprises five parallel technical and engineering workstreams designed to improve ore selectivity and recovery, reduce material-handling and processing costs, and optimise downstream plant design. Results are expected progressively through 2026 and into 2027.
North Star’s preliminary economic assessment (PEA) outlined a US$1.39 billion ($1.94 billion) after-tax net present value at a 10% discount rate, a 43.5% after-tax internal rate of return, and average annual after-tax cash flow of US$249.6 million. The PEA estimates a 23-month payback period.
Electric Metals says it hosts the ‘highest-grade’ manganese deposit in North America at its Emily deposit within the project. The PEA outlines initial ‘high-purity’ manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) production of 100,000 tonnes per year, expanding to 200,000 tonnes per year in year three.
A 10,000-tonne-per-year electrolytic manganese metal (EMM) production circuit has also been incorporated into the project’s front-end loading one (FEL-1) engineering study.
CEO Brian Savage says the newly launched program is about “making the project better and worth more”.
“The PEA told us what the North Star manganese project is worth, but it wasn’t optimised,” Savage says.
“Manganese sits on America’s critical minerals list, yet this country hasn’t mined manganese ore in more than 50 years, and almost none of the world’s high-purity manganese chemistry happens outside China.
“The North Star Manganese Project is one of the few projects in the US with the grade and scale to change that.
“These programs are how we sharpen an already compelling project’s economics as we move toward prefeasibility.”
The program includes developing a mineral-speciation block model to support mine planning, expanding sensor-based ore-sorting evaluation, creating deposit-wide mineralogical data sets, and completing preliminary engineering and economic design for HPMSM production with an EMM circuit through the FEL-1 study.
Electric Metals notes preliminary ore sorting demonstrated doubling ore grades with less than 5% loss of manganese.
“We’re running geology, ore sorting, metallurgy, downstream engineering, and environmental review in parallel because that’s the fastest way to let each workstream inform the others in real time,” Savage says.
The company is also continuing to evaluate project-level technical work required for future resource-to-reserve conversion and prefeasibility activities.
Electric Metals (USA) is a critical minerals and advanced materials company focused on building an integrated domestic manganese supply chain in the US.
Write to Paula Fabe at Mining.com.au
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