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Penny Taylor
Accelerate Resources has called in the nation’s top scientific minds, partnering with the government research organisation CSIRO to crack the metallurgical code of its Woodie Woodie North manganese project in Western Australia’s prolific Pilbara region.
The company has been awarded a $50,000 Kick-Start research grant, which will fund a detailed characterisation study on its manganese mineralisation – a critical step in designing an effective processing flowsheet and assessing the potential for a saleable product.
Large-diameter metallurgical drill core from Accelerate Resources’ Woodie Woodie North project, now at CSIRO’s Perth laboratory for detailed analysis.
The study, titled Multiscale Characterisation of Manganese Mineralisation, is to be led by CSIRO’s Dr Yoram Teitler and will analyse 150 metres of large-diameter diamond core from the Dale’s Patch and Nathan’s Flat prospects within the project’s Area 42 deposit.
In the first stage, CSIRO will log and scan the core for manganese and associated elements using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and hyperspectral techniques, while measuring hardness. The second stage will involve petrographic, mineralogical and microanalytical work on representative samples to examine how each mineralisation style formed and how subsequent weathering may have altered their characteristics.
‘CSIRO brings world class mineral characterisation capability to understand how the different manganese ore types behave and give us a much sharper picture of the upgrade potential.’
Accelerate Resources chief executive officer Luke Meter
The analysis will help explain how different types of manganese mineralisation respond to processing, while guiding the company’s ongoing metallurgical and ore-sorting testwork. The findings are also expected to sharpen Accelerate’s geological understanding of the deposit, helping inform future resource evaluation and mine planning.
Accelerate Resources chief executive officer Luke Meter said: “CSIRO brings world class mineral characterisation capability that would be very difficult for a company of our size to access on this scale. Understanding how the different manganese ore types at Area 42 behave is fundamental to designing the right processing route.”
With the core already delivered to CSIRO’s Kensington laboratory in Perth, work is expected to begin shortly. The study is due to finish in mid-2027, when CSIRO will deliver a technical report and recommendations for further work. Accelerate will report its own metallurgical and ore-sorting results as they become available.
Woodie Woodie North covers 432 square kilometres, 55km north of Consolidated Minerals’ operating Woodie Woodie manganese mine, in a region known for high-grade manganese. The commodity is on Australia’s Critical Minerals List for its essential role in steelmaking and growing use in lithium-ion battery chemistries.
Accelerate has already defined a maiden inferred resource of 1.2 million tonnes grading a respectable 19.1 per cent manganese and has outlined a much larger conceptual exploration target of between 5.3 million and 10.7 million tonnes at 10 to 19 per cent manganese. Neither includes the company’s Gingarrigan and El Largo trends.
These high-grade corridors sit beyond both figures and emerged throughrecent mapping of more than 200 manganese outcrops across Woodie Woodie North. Rock chips returned up to 59.4 per cent manganese at El Largo, 12km south-east of Area 42, and 59.6 per cent at the separate Faris prospect 2km south-east of the resource. The surface grades flag the potential for a simple direct-shipping-ore (DSO) operation down the track, subject to further drilling and metallurgical tests.
While drilling is ongoing across the project, the core being studied comes from earlier large-diameter work at Area 42, where Accelerate reported visual manganese across a 72-metre downhole span at Nathan’s Flat in October, from 5.6m to the end of the hole at 77.6m.
The CSIRO collaboration adds another dimension to Accelerate’s manganese ambitions at Woodie Woodie North, which sits alongside its gold projects in WA’s Eastern Goldfields at Balagundi and Kanowna East, and lithium prospects near Karratha.
For a junior explorer, leveraging CSIRO’s world-class firepower is a serious coup. Getting the metallurgy right is often the key that unlocks a project’s value, and by decoding its ore, Accelerate could be fast-tracking its path from Pilbara explorer to producer.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
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