Seaborne low- and high-grade manganese ore prices held steady in the week to Friday May 28, with participants in the market awaiting for miners to make offers for July-shipment in the following week.
Fastmarkets'
manganese ore index 37% Mn, cif Tianjin was unchanged week on week at $4.50 per dry metric tonne unit (dmtu) on May 28.
No liquidity was reported to Fastmarkets, while there was concern among South African ore producers about the rail slots they would be given by Transnet, South Africa's state transportation provider, to move ore to Port Elizabeth.
The volume of rail capacity available for manganese ore producers is expected to be reduced by Transnet in the wake the floods that damaged tracks in January and February.
"We are expecting cutbacks to rail capacity along the Port Elizabeth corridor," a producer source said.
Current prices of semi-carbonate ore mean producers' profit margins are narrow when they are transported by rail. But they would be narrower still if producers need to transport material by road to make up for the shortfall of rail availability.
"Moving material by...