Manganese price inches down on reluctant buyers

‍‍Manganese prices show signs of decline on Thursday July 12th as sellers lowered offers to boost trades when buyers hesitated.

Manganese in major Chinese markets at 17,700-17,800CNY/MT ex-works on Thursday, down from 18,000CNY/MT a day earlier. This followed a surge since late June, when the assessment stood at 13,900CNY/MT.

However, tight supply in the market is set to linger with environment restrictions unlikely to ease in major producing areas in the short term.

In Ningxia, one of the three manganese plants at local major producer Tianyuan Group remained under suspension as of July 12th, failing to recover in late June. It was shut in middle of May, affecting annual capacity of 200,000 MT.

In Songtao county of Guizhou province, manganese producers will not resume production before July 17th, when the inspection team is scheduled to leave after one week of examination. All manganese plants and some parts of mines there have been suspended since June 1st, by Songtao government, after slag and water pollution woes drew public attention.

‍