The commercialisation of South African-developed technology to improve the beneficiation of manganese ore into ferromanganese is advancing with the support of the world's largest diversified miner, BHP Billiton.

BHP Billiton owns 60% of Samancor, one of the largest global producers of manganese ore and manganese alloys, with Anglo American owning the remaining share.

Speaking during a briefing on BHP Billiton's carbon-steel materials business – which includes iron-ore, metallurgical coal and manganese – BHP Billiton manganese president Peter Beavan said that Samancor intended to install a 30 000-t/y high-carbon ferromanganese production plant, "probably" at its Met-alloys plant, in Meyerton, Gauteng. The high-carbon ferromanganese plant will be based on South African-developed AlloyStream technology and will be installed by the end of 2008 or the beginning of 2009.

It is believed that the technology will not only drive down the cost of producing manganese alloys, but also assist local manganese producers to support the South African government's call for greater beneficiation.

Manganese is used in steel production and South Africa is endowed with 80% of the known economically-mineable manganese ore reserves worldwide.

Samancor's South African manganese mines comprise the Mamatwan and Wessels mines, in Hotazel, in the Northern Cape. Samancor entered into a joint venture agreement with local diversified mining company Kumba Resources, in March, to produce manganese alloys using Kumba's AlloyStream technology.

Beaven said that proving the commercial viability of the technology was still under way.

He added that a technically-viable demonstration plant was up and running and that a feasibility study was being conducted.

The use of AlloyStream reportedly lowers the cost of conventional ferro-manganese production by between 30% and 50%.

Kumba made a significant investment – more than R90-million between 2001 and 2004, and more since then – in the development of the technology's ferroalloy applications.

AlloyStream is based on a technology that the company inherited from Iscor, now Mittal Steel South Africa.

Iscor developed the technology in a bid to produce steel without the intermediary step of producing iron. However, it was found that the biggest potential for the technology lay in the production of ferroalloys.

AlloyStream allows the use of lower-cost feedstock and uses relatively cheap thermal coal, instead of expensive coking coal, as a reducing agent.

Beavan said that the process permits the use of finer ore material, which is otherwise not useable in current submerged-arc furnaces.

"It has better efficiency in electricity consumption and it uses an induction heater, and not the slightly technically-challenging electrode," Beavan added. The ability to introduce a cost-saving technology is of increasing importance to BHP Billiton's manganese operations in South Africa as the company is facing a number of cost increases, over which it has little control.

It emerged from the briefing that BHP viewed the increasing cost of shipping manganese to the coast as the key constraint that could prevent the growth of South Africa's manganese industry in line with growing world demand. Up to two-thirds of the total free-on-board cost could be attributed to Spoornet.

"Spoornet has a large maintenance backlog. They are trying to catch up and, unfortunately, they are hitting us with above-inflation increases. I think that's something which we have the most concern about for the longer term if it does not reverse itself," Beavan pointed out. He added that the rising cost of electricity and the uncertainty about Transnet's plans for the Port Elizabeth harbour, which is South Africa's main manganese export port, were also serious concerns.