Schaeffler (China) President Visited Qilin Company(2008-12-22) ZWZ Testing Center Passed Retrial of CNAS(2008-12-15) Job Vacancy in China from Boca Bearing Company(2008-12-10) Leeport Becomes Sole Agent of Safan in China(2008-12-05) The 9th CILOGRTE Held in Shanghai(2008-11-29) Energy will be pushing small and medium-sized wind power project(2008-11-20) The wind farm in Guanacaste will receive additional investment(2008-11-10) It will be installed a wind farm with private investment(2008-11-10) Origin Energy to buy power from Acciona''s Waubra wind farm(2008-11-05) HOW-TO: Make a vertical-axis wind turbine for $300(2008-11-05) Shenyang Machine Tool Forecasts an Annual Loss for 2008(2008-11-03) "Wind power" rapid expansion of the national goal two years ahead of schedule(2008-10-25) EU 1,000,000,000 euros investment in the development of new energy industry(2008-10-22) On the grid with wind farms out of the clearance operation(2008-10-16) Wind power resources to each other enterprises competing for quality investment(2008-10-16) Rolling bearing commodity inspection and acceptance(2008-10-13) The intense interest in the development of the Northern Cape manganese deposits(2008-09-04) People have remodeling jobsoften dispose of their trash on private property(2008-09-04) Ishiyamadera temple became popular with women inpart because of its proximity(2008-09-04) Limestone hills in Ma-laysia tend to have shallow soil cove(2008-09-04)Assmang is doing this because it cannot get the ore out throughPort Elizabeth, the port traditionally used for manganese exports.At the moment, the harbour cannot cope with increased exportvolumes.
Road haulage costs to Richards Bay amount to about R650/tonne, buthigh-grade manganese fines sold for an average price of US$197/t(about R1 400) FOB (free on board) during the year to end-June.
Prices for high-grade manganese fines have doubled to between$380/t and $400/t (between R2 900/t and R3 080/t).
Assmang sells a variety of grades of manganese ore throughlong-term contracts, as well as on the spot market.
Northern Cape deposits
Assmang is jointly controlled by Assore and African RainbowMinerals (Arm), which on Monday reported results for the year toend-June revealing that manganese had by far the highest profitmargin in the group.
Arm's overall earnings before interest, tax and depreciation(Ebitda) margin was 57% but the Ebitda margin on manganese oresales was 73%, compared with 54% on manganese alloy sales.
Manganese contributed 49.1% of Arm's total earnings before interestand tax (Ebit) of R6.7bn in financial 2008, compared with 19.3% oftotal Ebit of R2.5bn in financial 2007.
These profit levels and margins explain the intense interest in thedevelopment of the Northern Cape manganese deposits.
Four newcomers are jostling to get into the business, which iscurrently dominated by Assmang and Samancor.
One of those newcomers is Pallinghurst Resources, which listed onthe JSE recently. According to Pallinghurst CEO Arne Frandsen,plans are to develop an opencast mine producing 2mt/year ofmanganese ore.
He commented: "We're in discussions with Transnet Freight Rail(TFR) over the logistics of getting that material to the coast.Obviously, over the longer term we would like to build a smelter tobeneficiate that material but then you run into the powerconstraint problems."
Pre-feasibility study
Interviewed after Monday's presentation, Arm executive director JanSteenkamp said Assmang was in discussions with TFR over plans toincrease the total amount of manganese ore exported from SouthAfrica.
Steenkamp said the current capacity to export manganese ore by railthrough Port Elizabeth was 3.5mt/year, which was split betweenAssmang and Samancor.
That capacity was being ramped up to 4.2mt/year.
Medium-term plans were to expand the capacity on the rail line andat Port Elizabeth harbour to 6mt/year over a 24-month period,starting from next year.
At the same time, a pre-feasibility study would be carried outlooking at the potential to export up to a further 3mt/year ofmanganese ore by railing it to Durban for shipment through theexisting Bluff Mechanical Appliance (BMA).
Steenkamp said: "That would take capacity to a total level ofmanganese exports of around 9mt/year. Based on our assessment ofthe global market and various market research reports, we reckonSouth Africa could export in total more than 12Mt/year over a five-to 10-year time frame.
"Who gets what share of the expansion of TFR's capacity above4.2mt/year will obviously be the subject of debate, but my mainfocus is on how to get the total increased export volumes out ofthe country.
"In the longer term there may be potential to go throughCoega, depending on developments."
Asked about the possible impact of government's drive tobeneficiate SA's minerals locally instead of exporting the raw ore,Steenkamp said: "That's fine, but then you come up against thereality of the power supply situation.
"We have just suspended the environmental impact assessment onthe proposed seventh furnace at our Cato Ridge smelter because weneed to have greater confidence on when the power to run thatfurnace will be available."
Steenkamp acknowledged that trucking manganese ore to Richards Baywas not ideal and that the haulage of this material is damaging thecountry's road infrastructure.
"We are consulting and co-operating with the department ofroads [transport] and local municipalities, and have created abudget to help with road repairs going forward, particularly in theNorthern Cape," he said.
- Miningmx.com
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