Manganese

We are big believers in the growth of energy storage and EV battery market - this is a big part of why we like the outlook for manganese in 2023.

When we say the manganese outlook for 2023, we are especially interested in the outlook for high purity manganese (HPM) which promises to go into electric vehicle batteries in rapidly increasing volume over the coming decade.

Global car makers including Tesla, Volkswagen, Stellantis, and Renault have each announced moves to batteries with high manganese content.

That’s not to entirely discount the essential role manganese plays in the production and strengthening of steel, which for now accounts for roughly 90% of manganese demand.

We expect the use of manganese to increase this year if governments around the world roll out fiscal stimulus to ward off a recession - a factor for manganese consumption which is closely bound up with steel demand.

We think that could happen in the second half of the year adding further fuel to the ongoing commodities supercycle.

With that said, we note that Europe currently imports 100% of its manganese requirements with China supplying over 90% of the global high purity manganese market.

By one estimate, the world needs to 10x its high purity manganese supply to meet demand by 2030:

Source: Euro Manganese

We expect the established uses of manganese to collide with emerging uses at some point in the next few years creating a significant increase in demand.

Our view here is informed by the fact that manganese reduces costs in battery manufacturing.

This chart shows how the move to higher manganese content could strip out some of the costs for EV manufacturers:

CPM Group forecast a 30-fold increase in the use of manganese in EV batteries in the 15 years from 2021 to 2036. 

This translates to a forecast deficit in 2031 of 475kt Mn equivalent.

But if battery demand keeps growing as expected and no additional projects come to the market, that deficit could reach 1 million tonnes by 2037. 

Again, there’s plenty of manganese in the world (around 300 years worth) — just not much capacity to get it up to scratch for EV batteries.

So we’re particularly interested in high grade and high purity manganese projects whose products can make their way to the European market - we largely see the high purity manganese supply problem as a processing bottleneck with geopolitical elements.

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What the analysts say

On high purity manganese, CPM Group senior analyst Andrew Zemek says “we see a foresee a significant deficit in the supply of high purity manganese…[through to 2031]”

What about the bear case?

We see three primary ways a bear case could play out for manganese and high purity manganese:

1. China floods the market with high purity manganese hurting the economics of Western/friendly country DFS stage production of high purity manganese
2. Battery chemistries change again or the equilibrium in the battery chemistry market is changed such that manganese is not the preferred option
3. Recession impacts spending such that EV market penetration stalls