The 40th general conference of International Manganese Institute (IMnI) was held in Cape Town, South Africa, and the IMnI's secretariat reported the world manganese production and trend in consumption in the calendar year 2013.

The production volume of manganese-containing ferroalloy in 2013 was 19.019 million tons (material quantity), up by 8.4% from 17.548 million tons of the prior year. Meanwhile, the consumption was 19.313 million tons, up by 9.0% from 17.711 million tons of the prior year. The reason why both production and consumption increased is because the production volume of crude steel was up (by 3.1% from the prior year) and both production and consumption in China were drastically up.

The production volume of manganese ore was 18.231 million tons, up by 8.9% from 16.737 million tons of the prior year. On the other hand, the consumption was 17.371 million tons, up by 4.2% from 16.663 million tons of the prior year.

The production and consumption of manganese ore and manganese-containing ferroalloy according to this report are to be referred to the table below.

For a reference, China's production volume of manganese-containing ferroalloy in the calendar year 2013 was 11.792 million tons which comprised 62% of the world production, and in case of China's production volume being excluded, the world production of manganese-containing ferroalloy was down from the prior year.

The trends in manganese-containing ferroalloy and manganese ore are as follows.

[Manganese-containing ferroalloy]

As mentioned above, China comprised a majority of the world production volume of manganese-containing ferroalloy, of which high-carbon ferro-manganese comprised 52%, medium-carbon ferro-manganese 52% and silico manganese 68%.

As a factor for decreased production in the countries other than China, the hike of electricity rate in Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and North America was provided.

[Manganese ore]

The increase in production of manganese ore was mainly attributed to the increased production (up by 24% from the prior year) in South Africa.

China's consumption also comprised a majority and increased by 12% from the prior year.

• [Editor:Sophie]