Department insists it wants manganese beneficiated in SA despite the South African processing industry shutting smelters SA HAS the greatest manganese resource on the planet, but the domestic industry to extract and process the mineral appears in disarray. Global prices for the steel ingredient are deep in the doldrums, while high and rising electricity prices are threatening to close all the country’s smelters.The Department of Mineral Resources insists it wants manganese beneficiated in SA despite the South African processing industry shutting smelters or curtailing production because operations have become uncompetitive as electricity prices increased 255% since 2009. With Eskom pushing for further increases to fund new power plants and to pay for diesel to fuel generators, the outlook is bleak, warned Hilgard Rademeyer, a director at Witbank manganese alloy smelting company Transalloys.Transalloys, one of the few remaining manganese smelting companies at full production, issued ...
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