Manganese miners have reported a sharp drop in demand from manganese alloy smelters in China due to their preference for buying ore from Chinese ports in a bid to keep costs and inventories low ahead of the end of the year.
Seaborne low grade manganese ore prices slid on November 30 due to sellers dropping prices amid weaker demand and a drop in silico-manganese futures prices on the Zhengzhou Commodities Exchange in response to China's weakening steel market. Fastmarkets MB's 37% manganese ore index, cif Tianjin dropped 8 cents to $6.76 per dry metric tonne unit (dmtu) on November 30. Fastmarkets MB's 44% manganese ore index, cif Tianjn rose 1 cent to $7.18 per dmtu. The downturn in seaborne demand has occurred...