Already in November of last year, a trial extraction of manganese began on the heaps of excavated tailings near Chvaletic, and the first samples of the mineral are already being tested by car companies from Europe, including the French startup Verkor, and North America. Everyone wants to use it in the production of batteries for electric cars.
Jan Votava, executive director of Mangan Chvaletice, which is part of the Canadian Euro Manganese, has now told SZ Byznys that six companies from the entire supply chain are already interested in the samples. “At the same time, we are continuing procurement negotiations with other interested parties from the electric vehicle supply chain in Europe and North America,” he added.
“Stakeholders including Verkor test the purity of our manganese to make sure it is suitable as a raw material for their products,” said Votava.
Volkswagen, Tesla, GM and Stellantis have recently announced the transition to cathodes with a high manganese content. They are also tested by companies such as BASF and Umicore.
Mangan
Manganese (chemical symbol Mn, Latin Manganum) is a light gray, paramagnetic, hard metal. It is used in metallurgy as an additive to various alloys, catalysts, color pigments and precisely in the production of batteries.
Cobalt is used the most in them so far. But it is expensive (it is the most expensive metal used in the production of electric cars) and its largest producer is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, “famous” for example for child labor, but also for extremely unstable politics. The world’s car manufacturers are therefore trying to find a replacement for it, which can be cheaper manganese.
During March, the test plant could produce up to 30 kilograms of pure manganese metal per day, which can be used to produce 100 kilograms of pure manganese sulfate. This “verification unit” will not yet be intended for continuous operation, but in preparation for the construction of a large processing plant for the extraction and processing of manganese.
“The capital required to build a commercial plant is expected to be approximately $750 million (16.5 billion crowns). In cooperation with our financial advisors, we are working on a project financing structure that would be a combination of debt and equity,” says Votava.
It will start to earn what was not already earning
Currently, Euro Manganese has approximately 18 million dollars in cash (400 million crowns) available, which are intended for preparatory work, including obtaining the necessary permits. At the end of last year, the company submitted the documentation for the construction of the recycling plant and the removal of material from the sludge pits to the Ministry of the Environment.
The Canadian firm will employ about 35 people at the test factory, and if all goes according to plan, construction of the “big plant” with 400 employees could begin next year, with completion planned for 2027.
At the same time, Euro Manganese expects a relatively high return from the project. In its February presentation, it states a total profit after tax of 1.3 billion dollars (29 billion crowns).
As part of the project, Euro Manganese plans to process a manganese deposit located in tailings heaps from a decommissioned mine after pyrite mining. The mine operated from 1951 to 1975. The Chvaletic site is the largest source of manganese in the European Union and, according to miners, has the potential to satisfy the growing demand for raw materials important for the automotive industry.
The history of bragging manganese
- The presence of manganese and iron minerals was first noted near the present-day village of Chvaletice in the eighteenth century. Sporadic localized mining of the Chvaletice deposit took place at the beginning of the 20th century.
- Starting in the 1930s, manganese was extracted from the ore and this ore went to steel mills in Czechoslovakia and Germany. Between 1951 and 1975, mining focused on obtaining pyrite to produce sulfuric acid for various industrial purposes.
- The waste from these operations gradually created the three existing brackish heaps forming the deposit. These heaps were rehabilitated with a layer of topsoil and trees were planted between 1975 and 1983.
- In the late 1980s, Bateria Slaný, then the Czechoslovak state-owned battery manufacturer, conducted extensive tailings studies to determine the feasibility of producing manganese dioxide for use in dry battery cells. Although studies confirmed great economic potential, further work was stopped after the change of political regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989.
- The deposit was not used until September 2014, when the mining rights were granted to a Czech group of companies. The rights to the project were then consolidated in the joint holding company Mangan Chvaletice.
