Bidders stand ready for South32 manganese assets
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Expressions of interest have already emerged for diversified miner South32’s manganese alloy assets in South Africa and Tasmania, despite the fact that a review into the future of these operations is still ongoing.
South32 CEO Graham Kerr said on the sideline’s of the company’s annual general meeting in Perth, that there was no clear timeline for the completion of the review, but that an ultimate outcome could be established by the first quarter of next year.
The miner in August this year flagged a review of the manganese alloy assets, which produced 223 000 t during the full year ending June, a 9% reduction on the previous financial year.
Kerr said that South32’s manganese alloy smelters had become more challenging, given that new smelters being developed in other parts of the world were making use of newer technologies, and often had subsidized power.
“If you think of the terminal markets such as India and China, they are building new plants that run more efficiently,” he said on Thursday.
Kerr said that the options under consideration include outright closure of both the South African and Tasmanian operations, a mothballing of operations until a price rebound, or the outright sale of the assets to interested parties that had "a different view of the commodity or a use of the equipment, and could make some money out of it".
“We want to ensure that we do this right, because it will impact our staff, the communities where we operate, and our customer and suppliers.”
Comments
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation