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Manganese X Energy (TSXV: MN) has released the first resource estimate for the company’s wholly owned Battery Hill manganese project in southwestern New Brunswick, about 5 km from the town of Woodstock.

Battery Hill now has a measured resource of 11.26 million tonnes grading 6.75% manganese and 10.96% iron. Indicated resources are 23.6 million tonnes grading 6.26% manganese and 10.53% iron. Inferred resources add 25.91 million tonnes grading 6.66% manganese and 10.92% iron. The estimate used a 2.5% manganese cut-off grade.

“This is game changing news for the company,” the company’s CEO, Martin Kemp, says in a press release. “Having such a large resource totalling 34.9 million measured and indicated tonnes and 25.9 million inferred tonnes underwrites the project’s long-term potential for supply of manganese.”

Over the past five years, Manganese X Energy has undertaken several core drilling programs at the site, including 53 holes totaling just under 10,000 metres over a deposit strike length of about 2 km. The company now plans a diamond drilling program to expand the measured and indicated resource for Battery Hill.

Kepman says the company is in the process of completing a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the project incorporating the new mineral resource estimate. Based on the large inventory of measured and indicated resources defined to date, the company also intends to move forward to the feasibility study stage for the project in the near future.

“We are buoyed by the knowledge that, with a positive outcome from the PEA, there appears to be sufficient tonnage of measured and indicated mineral resources to potentially sustain long term production,” says Kepman.

The project consists of 55 claims covering 1,228 hectares and encompasses all or parts of five manganese-iron ore zones, including Iron Ore Hill, Moody Hill, Sharpe Farm, Maple Hill and Wakefield.

(This article first appeared in The Northern Miner)