Estrella set to ship first payable manganese ore from Timor Leste

Estrella Resources is on the cusp of banking its first revenue after pulling a 22,600-tonne market sample from a freshly mined small open pit in the emerging mineral frontier of Timor-Leste.

The company extracted the first payable ore from its Ira Miri project under a 30,000-tonne extraction permit to test market suitability for its manganese product.

Management says the work flow is now rolling straight into sale and shipment preparations for a select group of potential offtake partners.

Notably, the current trial pit face finishes in manganese mineralisation which is a handy way of keeping the geological story alive while the first parcels are being lined up for the seaborne market. 

Management says it is sitting on multiple induced polarisation (IP) anomalies at depth under and adjacent to the trial pit, setting the scene for a possible full scale commercial extraction if the bulk samples meet the mark. 

Logistics also appear to be taking shape. Estrella says Autoridade Nacional dos Minerais, Timor-Leste’s national mining authority and regulator, has approved the port stockpile location, allowing direct‑shipping ore to be blended to customer specification before being trans‑shipped into a bulk carrier.

From there, the newly mined market sample will be shipped to prospective offtake partners for detailed assessment of physical, chemical and processing characteristics.

Estrella Resources managing director Chris Daws said: “The accelerating extraction of high‑grade, high‑purity Ira Miri manganese is a major development for Estrella. Not only have we demonstrated the project has the scale to produce a sizable market sample, but we are also yet to fully test our deeper and adjacent targets.”

From a geology and mine-planning perspective, the pit was specifically designed to target zones hosting earlier standout drill intersections. Those included 11.97 metres grading 28.9 per cent manganese and a separate 8.05-metre interval, which returned an impressive 53 per cent manganese.

Estrella says the IP surveys have also flagged large, highly chargeable anomalies beneath the current pit design, consistent with potential supergene manganese accumulations. Deep anomalies to the south‑east and north‑west also remain untested and are now obvious follow‑up drill targets if the early shipping campaign proves the ore can find a home.

Management has also flagged the next regulatory step, saying it will prioritise a Category A Mining Licence application to unlock full‑scale development and expanded mining activities at Ira Miri.

The neat part of the Ira Miri story is the tempo. Estrella points out it kicked off maiden drilling in May 2025 and since then it has moved from discovery to extraction inside just nine months. 

If the first shipments land clean and the untested IP targets behave themselves, the next chapter could write itself in a country that is rapidly becoming the next big mineral frontier.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au