Chinese imports of manganese ore totaled 15.7 million tonnes in the first six months of 2019, up by 27.8% from around 12.3 million tonnes in the corresponding period of 2018, according to official but unconfirmed data seen by Fastmarkets.
In June, China imported about 2.03 million tonnes of manganese ore, marking an increase of around 3% from 1.97 million tonnes last June, despite being down by 39.4% from 3.36 million tonnes in May. The significant year-on-year rise in manganese ore imports in China in the first half of 2019 was partly ascribed to growing demand from the country's manganese alloy plants driven by steadily increasing demand from the downstream mills over the same period, market sources said. China's silico-manganese production totaled around 5.5 million tonnes in the first half of the year, recording a year-on-year rise of around 20%, market sources told Fastmarkets. Meanwhile, China produced 492 million tonnes of crude steel over January-June, an increase of 9.9% year on year, according...