Growing manganese capacity in Indonesia to shrink China’s exports there
China’s exports of electrolytic manganese to Indonesia are likely to substantially fall as manganese capacity in Indonesia expands.
PT. Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel (ITSS) on February 13rd commissioned its second production line at its manganese plant. The company has two manganese production lines in operation, with each producing 45 mt of electrolytic manganese per day. A third production line is in the pipeline.
The stainless-steel maker, which based in Morowali, Indonesia, put 1 million mt of stainless-steel capacity into production in June 2018. This brought the company's total stainless-steel capacity to 3 million mt.
We learned that the company’s monthly output of stainless steel averaged about 200,000 mt, and were all for the #300 series. This is estimated to require 2,000-3,000 mt of electrolytic manganese per month, with 1-1.5% of manganese.
Indonesia Tsingshan’s manganese output is likely able to support its consumption.
China exported 19,586 mt of electrolytic manganese to Indonesia in 2018, up 67% from 2017, data from China Customs showed. The exports were unwrought materials, indicating that all the manganese would be used in stainless steel production.
