It wasn't a great half year for BHP Billiton (BHP) in terms of its manganese performance. Compared with the second half of 2008, revenues for that metal in the six months to December 2009 were down 54 per cent while underlying earnings before interest and tax slumped 85 per cent.

Manganese, the ingredient vital to steelmaking and for which there is no substitute, has been a serious casualty of the downturn in steel demand and so has not had much investor interest. Spot prices paid by Chinese importers fell by about two-thirds in the 12 months from July 2008.

However, there is clearly a growing confidence that the worst is over. The price graph line has been heading upwards for the past six months.

And is it just coincidence that three of the more likely manganese stars of the future all chose last week to launch investor presentations about themselves? Manganese, incidentally, is the fourth most used metal after iron, aluminium and copper.

BHP is, of course, the big banana in Australian manganese with its 60 per cent owned Groote Eylandt mine in the Northern Territory, followed by the now delisted Consolidated Minerals at Woodie Woodie in Western Australia and the other producer, OM Holdings (OMH), also in the NT. All three are within the top 20 Australian mines by value.

But it is the manganese explorers, rather than producers, that may soon be attracting the attention of the punters. For a company whose shares still trade at just 20c, Shaw River Resources (SRR) has a lofty ambition: to become the world's leading manganese producer and explorer. With $5 million in the bank and no debt, SRR has six manganese projects active, most in the Pilbara and one in Ghana.

Another presentation came out of Aurora Minerals (ARM), which has the Capricorn Southeast deposit, inland from Carnarvon. There's been mounting interest in this stock. Last month Fat Prophets recommended a buy at $1.05; but the stock is now at $1.25 after climbing 17 per cent over the past two trading days.

This advice is obviously worth considering in view of Fat Prophets having last September tipped it at 44c.

In its latest note, Fat Prophets says Aurora seems intent on adding shareholder value as quickly as possible but adds: "It might not have much time to do this before the inevitable hostile takeover."

But Gavin Wendt at Mine Life inserts a word of caution. Aurora, he says, may well have a large project but this project is yet to be properly tested by drilling. As regular readers will know, Pure Speculation is very keen on drilling before losing its head over a project.

The other stock presenting, and which also saw a good price hike last week, was Western Uranium (WTN) , which went nowhere looking for yellowcake and is now reinventing and renaming itself as manganese explorer Groote Resources. It has taken up ground (and underwater areas) near what it calls "BHP's well-kept secret" at Groote Eylandt.

No one can quite figure out why this ground was there for the picking. And WTN has just appointed the man who managed BHP's manganese exploration, Barrie Bolton, as geological adviser for many years. Ten of those years were spent at BHP's mine next door to WTN.

Mongolian dream

The eyebrow-raiser on Friday was the debut of Hunnu Coal (HUN), whose 20c shares shot to 41c on debut, then settled to close at 33.5c. Who would have thought that coal exploration in Mongolia could have got investor pulses racing so quickly?

This has concentrated minds at the so far unlisted Xanadu Mines, which has some advanced coal projects in Mongolia. The Sydney company had been planning to float in Hong Kong, but that exchange has yet to bed down its new resource company rules, so it looks as if Xanada might strike on the ASX while the iron's hot.

Friday also saw the settlement by Windy Knob Resources (WKR) on its Ovoot coal project in Mongolia. Sadly for those who had become attached to probably the most colourful company name on the ASX, WKR will trade as Aspire Mining (AKM) from tomorrow .

David McSweeney, the man who built iron ore success story Gindalbie Metals (GBG), is heading the new board taking over the hitherto becalmed junior.

He admits that, five years ago, he would not have been able to sleep for worrying about the logistics of a deposit 200km from the Trans-Siberian railway in Russia and 400km from the north-south rail artery through Mongolia that runs to the Chinese border.
Ovoot has hard coking coal and, if it proves to be big enough, McSweeney believes it could justify its own rail connection. Early days, of course; the vendors have drilled only eight holes, of which four hit coal.

But McSweeney is not fazed by that either. He remembers that the old Western Mining drilled only two holes at what became Gindalbie's prize project in WA and estimating it contained 2.5 million tonnes of iron ore. In fact, there was 2.5 billion tonnes under the ground.

Tailenders

Every miner and his dog will no doubt have filed an expression of interest in a Bowen Basin coal licence area being unloaded by utility Stanwell Corp under the Queensland government's fire sale of state assets.

One bidder will be environmental play Pacific Enviromin (PEV), which, we learn, has teamed up for this bid with what is described as a "major international coal mining group".

This junior now has six coal projects. The Stanwell ground is next to one of those six, and has an established resource of coking coal. The stock closed at 1.7c on Friday.

No one really knows where the gold price is going, so we may see hedging staging a comeback.

Adamus Resources (ADU) has set the pace by locking in 290,000oz, or about 27 per cent of its resource in Ghana, at $US1075/oz. This was obviously a condition of the $US76m financing deal with Macquarie Bank, but the price is comfortably above ADU's estimated production cost of $US400/oz.

Those shareholders of the former Tethyan Copper who pocketed $1.40 a share when Barrick Gold and Chile's Antofagasta Minerals took out their company might like to go out and buy a lottery ticket after dodging a bullet.

The prize for the new owners was the huge Reko Diq copper-gold project in Pakistan.

A news report at the weekend said the Baluchistan state government, which owns 25 per cent, will take over the running of Reko Diq. That's political risk for you. Reko Diq contains an estimated $US1 trillion worth of metal.