russians want to corner the manganese market

russians and chinese are looking at Africa to gain access to cheaper raw materials.

One raw material they want is manganese.

Renova already has interests in Africa, the place where 80% of manganese can be found.

They own 49% of United Manganese of the Kalahari.

CSM has 10% of the world's high quality manganese.

I would say that Renova will get CSMs manganese assets via Pallinghurst.

Any idea that CSM will be the company in the box seat is fanciful.

Renova will be the company that will eventually corner the manganese market.

here is a bit on Renova's interest in Africa
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Calahari Manganese
In 2004 RENOVA Group of Companies launched joint ore-mining and smelter projects in South Africa to implement intergovernmental agreements. Its South African projects are managed by the Swiss company Investment Partner AG.

Kalahari Manganese became the leading project. RENOVA and its South African partners established a consortium called United Manganese of Kalahari (UMK). RENOVA owns 49% of UMK, while 51% is owned by the companies that represent interests of the historically discriminated local groups.

According to the geological prospecting program, the consortium will complete a detailed geological survey, assess reserves and draft a feasibility study by 2007. If geological exploration shows favorable results, the company intends to build a pit with the annual capacity of 1.5-2.0 million tons. The surveying began in the Kalahari region in August 2005.

The goal of the Kalahari Manganese project is to make high value added products and build processing facilities in the country. A new ferroalloy plant will be built in South Africa for the processing of manganese ore. RENOVA group has started a pre-feasibility study into the construction of a ferroalloy smelter.

For information:

Manganese, an important component in steelmaking, is used for improving the properties of steel. On average, one ton of steel requires 6 or 7 kg of manganese but higher grades might require up to 250 kg. Thus, manganese ore is a strategic resource, and demand for it will increase as the world steel output will grow.

South Africa contains 80% of the world’s manganese reserves, and most of these are in the Northern Cape province (Kalahari and Postmasburg). Kalahari manganese field (KMF) hosts 22 fields of high quality ore, and its deposits amount to several hundreds of millions of metric tons.

http://www.renova.ru/eng/businesses/bus_dir_1/bus_1_11/