JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The Competition Tribunal approval of the acquisition of ferromanganese major Metalloys in Meyerton, Gauteng, is raising hopes of a revival of South Africa’s manganese alloy potential.

Metalloys, which has one million tons a year in manganese alloy capacity, has been on care-and-maintenance and has not been operating since March 2020.

Now Khwelamet, owned  jointly by Menar and Ntiso, will be taking over where South32 subsidiary Samancor Manganese left off. Samancor is owned 60% by South32 and 40% owned by Anglo American.

Khwelamet’s involvement in the production of manganese ore, through Menar, is relevant to the proposed merger.

The Competition Tribunal has approved the proposed merger subject to conditions relating to employment, remediation and rehabilitation.

Post-merger, Khwelamet would, the tribunal stated, exercise sole control over the Metalloys Operations conducted by Samancor Manganese, which was involved in the smelting, refining and processing of high-carbon and medium-carbon ferromanganese.

Khwelamet, it added, is active in sectors including mining and energy, infrastructure, property, financial services, telecoms, resources and agriculture and professional services provision.

Prior to ceasing operations, Metalloys was involved in producing manganese alloy. Its current focus has been to continue with remediation activities which include the selling of slag materials for use in road base and concrete making; uphold all environmental licenses and regulatory requirements; and maintain critical idle equipment to ensure their ability to safely restart as and when required, the tribunal stated.

As reported by Mining Weekly, private investment company Menar is looking to restart at least two of Metalloys’ four furnaces. Bringing two furnaces back online would provide the base for the production of 500 000 t/y of ferromanganese and require a feed of one-million tonnes of manganese ore from South African mines.

“When Samancor decided to close the operations, it was purely because of issues with power availability. Now with Eskom having surplus power, the opportunity is created for ferroalloy producers and Metalloys is one of them,”

The Metalloys property has a gas-fired power station, which Menar would like to revive in tandem with baseload from Eskom, waste-to-power generation and solar power generation.

“If the numbers make sense, then we will hopefully restart the operations in the next 12 months. That’s the plan,” Menar MD Vuslat Bayoğlu told Engineering News & Mining Weekly in a recent Zoom interview.

“It’s critical to make the product as green as possible and in addition to restarting the ferromanganese furnaces, we’d like to create an energy complex in the area. Hopefully this project will keep us busy next year.

“If you think about the 16-million-tonne to 17-million-tonne export capacity from South African manganese mines, a million tonnes is a sizable amount for the mines to supply for ferromanganese production. It will also be great for employment opportunities within the Vereeniging and Meyerton areas,” Bayoğlu added.

Rail infrastructure is there to receive manganese from the Northern Cape to feed this historical asset, which can now be served by new technology.

South Africa is producing one-third of the manganese ore in the world, but selling only 5% of the ferromanganese to the world.

Menar’s own diversification into manganese began in 2021 with the East Manganese project in the Northern Cape, where the development of a new underground manganese mine by the company is now at an advanced stage of assessment.