Manganese Will Overtake Lithium And Cobalt Combined

[Elderberry]

Energy Metal News 9/25/2018

Why we need an increase in production of manganese and vanadium for critical markets.

While demand for high-capacity batteries and electric vehicles are soaring, and agricultural need for fertilizer minerals grows, pressure is mounting on the mining industry to provide all the necessary materials—including both manganese and vanadium.

All while during a meteoric rise in demand for electric vehicles and high-capacity batteries, manufacturers of these goods are running head-on into competition for materials, including from a booming agriculture sector.

Two of the most overlooked critical metals in these booming markets are manganese and vanadium.

At present, the most popular being used are lithium-manganese-oxide batteries. As well, there are also lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt-oxide (NMC) batteries, which are using 19% manganese.

Manganese isn’t a new material, but demand for it is growing rapidly thanks to the battery needs of multiple markets. For generations, the metal has been used in steel production, which still consumes 90% of all manganese supplies annually at the moment. Traditionally, the balance of the supplies have been used in fertilizer and nutrition markets.

But, while many of the newer consumers of manganese are manufacturers in the west, there is currently no manganese production in North America.

Now while manganese is quietly rising in demand within the metals markets, so is vanadium.

Sharing many similarities with manganese, including being used in steel production, vanadium’s market value is solidly on the rise. Like manganese, approximately 90% of the world’s vanadium is used in steel production.

According to the article, the price of vanadium is rising faster than cobalt, copper and nickel, all of which are also used in lithium-ion batteries. Vanadium demand is growing through the need of the compound vanadium pentoxide, which is used as an electrolyte in vanadium redox flow batteries (VRBs).

Unlike manganese batteries, vanadium batteries are much larger, and are not used in EVs. Instead, VRBs are as big as shipping containers and are seen as better at storing large amounts of wind and solar energy, than large stacks of lithium-ion batteries.

For large-scale needs, it appears that VRBs are more economical and scalable than their lithium-ion counterparts.

Both manganese and vanadium are quietly rising in value, despite a supply gap that’s on the rise.

While the current battery boom is a major driver for both, manganese is also receiving heavy demands from another booming sector—Brazilian agriculture.

More: http://energymetalnews.com/2018/02/05/manganese-will-overtake-lithium-and-cobalt-combined/

[thackney]

...the metal has been used in steel production, which still consumes 90% of all manganese supplies annually at the moment. Traditionally, the balance of the supplies have been used in fertilizer and nutrition markets....

The article is lacking in any meaningful numbers.  But the lines I quoted above makes me think this doom and gloom article is a lot of hype and no real concern.

If that battery demand results in quintupling that share of the market demand, and the market share currently going to batteries is only 1% of the market, who is really worried?

[Elderberry]

The crux of the article was not to worry the reader. It was a promotion of Maxtech Ventures.