The Canadian company “ELCORA” announced that it had obtained, through a local branch in Morocco, a license to extract, process and sell manganese from a field in the Beni Mellal-Khenifra region.
The company stated, in a statement published on its website, that its subsidiary, Ermazon SARL, has obtained the aforementioned license from the government, which pertains to a site called “Atlas Fox Deposit” with a total area of 16 square kilometers.
In its statement, the company indicated the importance of this site, noting that laboratory studies on extracts from the site showed the presence of a significant percentage of manganese in the quarry, ranging from 16 to 50 percent, before sorting or processing.
According to the statement, the company expects to achieve an average production of approximately 2,500 metric tons per month, noting that manganese ore, in which the metal percentage reaches 37 percent, is sold in the international market at $331 per metric ton.
In addition to being an essential element in the steel industry, manganese plays an important role in a number of new industries, especially the manufacture of electric car batteries, which the company expects to increase in demand with international trends towards clean carbon transportation.
The lithium-nickel-manganese cobalt oxide battery is most common in power tools and in vehicle powertrains. In these batteries, electrolytic manganese dioxide is used as the cathode material.
According to the statement, the increasing use of electric vehicles is expected to increase the demand for manganese, and investors are optimistic that lithium-ion batteries that require manganese will become more common in the future.
It is worth noting that Ermazon is a limited liability company, headquartered in Midelt, according to the latter’s data. This company had acquired the Moroccan company, granting it 17 licenses to exploit manganese and copper mines, on an area estimated at 340 square kilometers.