Manganese ore

Metawise Group provides Manganese ore to all over the world. We are now carrying out concept studies in Delta, Utah (USA) to determine the feasibility of operations in this area. Manganese is essential to iron and steel production by virtue of its sulfur-fixing, deoxidizing, and alloying properties. Steelmaking, including its ironmaking component, has accounted for most manganese demand, presently in the range of 85% to 90% of the total demand.

Among a variety of other uses, manganese is a key component of low-cost stainless steel formulations. Small amounts of manganese improve the workability of steel at high temperatures, because it forms a high melting sulfide and therefore prevents the formation of a liquid iron sulfide at the grain boundaries. If the manganese content reaches 4% the embrittlement of the steel becomes a dominant feature. The embrittlement decreases at higher manganese concentrations and reaches an acceptable level at 8%. The fact that steel containing 8 to 15% of manganese is cold hardening and can obtain a high tensile strength of up to 863 MPa, steel with 12% manganese was used for the British steel helmets.

In steelmaking, manganese is usually added in the form of a ferroalloy. This includes three grades of ferromanganese (FeMn) - one standard (high-carbon - HC) grade containing 65-79% Mn and 7% carbon, and two refined grades with medium-carbon (MC) and low-carbon (LC) - and silicomanganese (SiMn), which contains 60-77% Mn and around 2% carbon. Cost, the type of steel being made and the process being used usually determine which ferroalloy is used.

Over the next six years the pricing prospects for medium to high grade manganese oxide ores should remain very favourable for providers. There are a number of factors that will support continued high prices over this period and these include:

• teadily increasing consumption of steel in the developing world that is driven by population numbers is somewhat resistant to economic downturn.
• The market for stainless steels are about to be increasing faster than steel, hence increasing the demand for manganese ores.
• he new ore sources that are being developed and brought on gradually are not of a size that will fully satisfy demand and are at a much higher production cost thus placing a floor to some extent under future price declines.
• he grade profile of ores available is shifting downwards, requiring more blending and thus higher premiums for higher grade ores.

Looking further ahead, we would expect to see a continuation of these trends, albeit with the short term fluctuations that are inevitable, and a move towards processes that can efficiently extract manganese out of the lower grades of manganese ore that are more abundant.