RRR now hearing Glencore could enter the frame, that would make the auction a mega-auction
https://intherightvein.com/2017/05/23/tshipi-sale-could-change-manganese-ore-market/
Tshipi sale could change manganese ore marketby alanpatrickryan
TMI and Citic Demeng are thought to be the leading contenders to purchase Tshipi that would be China’s first major foray in the South African manganese ore market. And, according to most manganese insiders, you can’t be in manganese without being in South Africa.
Tshipi is especially promising since it is lumped with the country’s lowest cost miners, UMK and South32 who have open cast operations. The breakeven point for those mines is though to be around $1.50 per Mn unit. Tshipi can produce between 1-million to 4-million mt of ore, with the two constraints logistics and the market. Currently, the operation produces around 2-million mtpy and virtually all of it goes to China.
The medium-grade ore (36-38% Mn) can be profitably sintered if the premium for high-grade ore 42-44% gets to be too high.
Both companies have significant interest in manganese. TMI is expected to finalize it purchase of ConsMin this week. ConsMin announced today that 99.94% of bondholders representing $416,232,846 in principal agreed to the deal.
While TMI is focusing of ConsMin’s Ghanaian mine that is uniquely position to feed TMI’s manganese metal operations, it will get the closed Woodie Woodie mine in Australia. However, insiders say the mine won’t be reopened until prices significantly improve and stay there. “It’s high cost and it doesn’t make sense to even consider opening it if TMI buys Tshipi.
Tshipi would also fit Citic Demeng’s manganese operations. Not only can the company use the ore, it also run a very large manganese-trading book.
The impact of the Chinese buying Tshipi is now being debated. With the South African closely monitoring ore exports there won’t be any transferring price. This is one of the reasons why the Malaysian smelters with South African ownership don’t exclusively use South African ore.
Still not everyone is worried about China taking an interest in manganese. “The market is in a permanent state of oversupply punctuated short spells of higher prices,” one producer admitted.
Still there are other suitors for Tshipi, and one of them on the 10-company shortlist might be Glencore. While Glencore has its own manganese smelters it lacks a mine though it markets Vale's material. The purchase of Tshipi would move it up to be a tier 1 player.