Here's an interesting article from local magazine, sorry for the...

Here's an interesting article from local magazine, sorry for the quality, it is google autotranslate from Czech into English.


The last century belonged to coal and uranium, in the current century the Czechia can get into the first league in lithium mining. But it is far from the only remarkable metal that can be mined and monetized industrially in our country. For example, a mining company with Canadian capital discovered a treasure in old heaps after pyrite mining near Chvaletice in the Elbe. This treasure is the lesser known manganese metal.

Its use is relatively wide - it is added to special steels and alloys used in the aerospace industry or in the production of beverage packaging. Its importance will grow due to the advent of electromobility and energy storage - manganese should partially replace expensive and scarce cobalt in lithium-ion batteries. Part of the deliveries to the world market will come from the Czech Republic - ie if the plan submitted by Mangan Chvaletice passes all rounds of the approval procedure.

Czech entrepreneurs came up with the original intention, in 2016 the company was bought by the Canadian junior mining company Euro Manganese. He admits on his website that this is a very lucrative business opportunity. He had the net present value of the project estimated at 593 million US dollars (13.6 billion crowns) with an expert opinion, at a ten percent discount rate. For comparison: the Australian EMH estimated the value of the lithium mining project at Cínovec at $ 1.1 billion.
Mining hidden behind reclamation

What exactly is going on in the locality on the border of the Pardubice and Central Bohemian regions? According to the documentation submitted by the investor to the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedure, Mangan Chvaletice and its Canadian owner want to overload the old heaps that grew up here under socialism during pyrite mining. However, the comrades made a mistake - they left more than one million tons of manganese in the tailings.

Mining activities in the cadastre of the municipalities of Trnávka and Chvaletice should start in 2023 and last for another 20 to 25 years. The goal is to extract about 50,000 tons of manganese a year from the tailings. South of the main railway line Prague – Pardubice, a processing plant will be built, in which part of the metal will be converted into a more commercially interesting form of manganese sulphate monohydrate.


The investor cannot be denied a certain sophistication - he partially disguises his mining project as the reclamation of the area. He submitted it to the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedure in August under the title "Recycling of the Chvaletice-Trnávka tailings pond". The documentation repeatedly emphasizes the environmental benefits of the project. "Currently, there is demonstrable pollution within the area of interest, which spreads from the area of sludge ponds to the surrounding environment and the nearby Elbe," it is stated in the documentation intended for the Ministry of the Environment.

The heaps in question are located in the vicinity of the Chvaletice coal-fired power plant, owned by financier Pavel Tykač. Although there seems to be nothing wrong with the environment in this area, some locals are of a different opinion. Michaela Matoušková, Mayor of Řečan nad Labem, for example, spoke out against the mining, which is concerned about the increase in dust, noise and deterioration in groundwater quality.
Belt before the election

On the contrary, some state organizations are supportive of the mining plan. The government agency CzechInvest even granted an investment incentive to Mangan Chvaletice in March this year. If the conditions are met, which include investing 2.5 billion crowns and creating 399 jobs, the miner will receive an income tax relief of up to 470 million crowns.

The fate of the EIA assessment at the Ministry of the Environment will be decisive for the future of the project. It is not a matter of course in Czech conditions to acquire the necessary land and approve a change in the zoning plan. The success of the Canadian miner will depend on whether a political-media "shitstorm" is torn around the considered manganese mining, as in the case of lithium in the Ore Mountains, or whether everything goes without much attention.

Just a reminder: lithium became a hot topic before the elections to the Chamber of Deputies in October 2017. Misleading information ("megatunnel for three trillion crowns") was first launched by conspiratorial sites, whose names are not said out loud in a decent society. Then populists from the ANO, KSČM and SPD movements jumped on the wave of stories about the robbery of the century. It almost certainly helped them to collect additional votes from frightened voters at the time.

There are a number of similarities, but also differences, between the two projects. The intention is a foreign mining start-up, focused purely on a single project. Both companies obtain finance through the issuance of shares on disallowed; Let's add that Australia and Canada are literally a paradise for junior mining companies - there are hundreds of them. Most of them will not achieve any concrete result, but some will actually hit an imaginary golden vein and open the way for investors to get rich.

On the contrary, the difference is that Canadians from Euro Manganese do not count on deep mining, the effects of which on the surroundings are more pronounced than in the case of "digging" the tailings heap. In addition, manganese was not included among the strategic raw materials that the state or state-controlled companies want to explore and mine as a priority. According to the proposal approved by the Ministry of Industry and Trade approved this year, this category includes lithium, uranium, gold, rubidium and cesium.
Uranium does not pay off

Apart from chemists and geologists, few people know the last two mentioned elements. On the other hand, the remaining three are a popular topic in the Czech Republic for the media and the political scene. Tons of gold could be found in the vicinity of Jílové near Prague, near Kašperské Hory, in the middle Povltaví or near Zlaté Hory in the Jeseníky Mountains. However, the content of precious metal in the rock is low and mining by cyanide leaching causes strong resistance among humans. So the new gold mine will probably not open in our country.

The last active uranium mine in Dolní Rožínka in the Žďár region ceased operations in April 2017 - due to loss-making operation and depletion of available reserves. The government sometimes brushes off plans to open a new uranium mine, for example in Brzkov in the Vysočina region, but given the current market price of uranium, it doesn't make much sense.

So there is lithium left, the extraction of which may become a reality in a few years. The company Cínovecká deponie, which is owned by the RSJ investment group, is closest to it. "With regard to the mining permit already issued at Cínovec, we select the optimal technology for the extraction and processing of raw materials. Technically, we should be able to start mining in a matter of years, "says Martin Frýdl, spokesman for the Cínovecká deponie company.

As the name of the company suggests, RSJ will focus on heaps from older mining from a time when no one was interested in lithium. Practically the same project is also being prepared by RSJ near Horní Slavkov in the Karlovy Vary region. According to preliminary calculations, the investor in both localities can obtain up to 7,500 tons of pure lithium from the rock, which at the current price on the world market is based on approximately 5.5 billion crowns.

Another hundreds of thousands of tons of lithium are hidden underground under the Ore Mountains. The Geomet company, which was dominated by the Australian mining start-up European Metals Holdings (EMH), focused on them. The company's plan envisages the production of 4,700 tons of pure lithium per year. Along with lithium, the rock contains tin and tungsten, which can also be advantageously monetized.

The project almost failed due to the disapproval of politicians from the left (or populist) wing of the political scene; from their point of view, it was scandalous for a private company from abroad to get rich in mining. In the end, we managed to find a solution that satisfied everyone involved. Based on an agreement reached last November, Severočeské doly, a member of CEZ Group under majority state control, bought a 51% stake in Geomet.

According to the available information, the project is moving forward at a brisk pace. The exploration of the deposit continues, including research into various methods for efficiently recovering lithium from the rock. If all goes well, the Czechia could become a major supplier of two major metals for use in batteries - lithium and manganese - in five years.