Switzer Super Report

Write up today headed " THREE POTENTIAL "BOOMTIME" NEW AGE MATERAIL STOCKS.
1. Element 25 (E25:ASX)Market capitalisation: $321 millionOne-year total return: 408%Three-year total return: 112.5% a yearAnalysts’ consensus valuation: n/aEarlier this month, WA manganese producer Element 25 (manganese is the 25th element on the periodic table) sent off the first shipment of manganese concentrate from its Butcherbird open-pit mining and processing operation, located in the southern Pilbara region. Butcherbird Australia’s largest manganese deposit, with 260 million tonnes of manganese ore in resources and a current projected mine-life of at least 42 years.While the vast majority of manganese is used in the steel industry, where it is used in specialty alloys, the metal is emerging as an increasingly important ingredient for EV batteries, with potential supply constraints for nickel and cobalt forcing battery manufacturers to look to high-manganese cathodes to produce the huge amount of cathode material that will be required by the EV industry in coming years. Stage One of the operation will produce high-quality manganese concentrate for export markets; in Stage Two of its operation Element 25 plans to convert the concentrate material into high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) for EV batteries. Stage Three envisages using a combination of carbon offsets and renewable energy to produce battery-grade “zero carbon manganese,” a term that Element 25 has trademarked.The investment case for Element 25 is that manganese is the cheapest and most abundant of the NMC cathode materials (nickel-manganese-cobalt), and that while nickel and cobalt have supply constraints, manganese does not. For cobalt, there are serious ethical concerns around production methods: and technically, the industry may be moving to a solution that uses only nickel and manganese.