Last domestic manganese maker calls it quits

By Staff -- Purchasing, 4/5/2001

Due to weak demand, soft prices and the availability of cheap imports, Kerr-McGee Chemical of Oklahoma City, Okla., will close its 12,000 metric ton/year manganese operations this July in Hamilton, Miss. The shutdown will eliminate the only remaining domestic U.S. source of manganese since Eramet Marietta Inc. shut its 9,000 metric ton/year manganese plant in Marietta, Ohio, last December. Global demand for manganese metal from the steel, aluminum and welding industries has fallen 40% since 1996. Kerr-McGee says low-priced imports have exceeded 13,000 metric tons annually for the past four years from South Africa and China. Demand is so slack that while the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency annually offers manganese for sale from the Defense National Stockpile Center, there were no bidders in the last offering of 2,000 short metric tons of electrolytic manganese in January.