Euro Manganese set to supercharge EV industry with Chvaletice’s manganese products

The battery metals revolution is here and battery-grade manganese stocks are increasingly in the spotlight.

Euro Manganese Inc (ASX:EMN, TSX-V:EMN, OTCQX:EUMNF) is preparing to take the sector by storm with its flagship project in the Czech Republic, a unique manganese asset in the heart of the European Union.

The company plans to power Europe’s electric vehicle (EV) revolution with its Chvaletice Manganese Project, which, starting in 2025, is expected to produce 50,000 tonnes of high-purity manganese per annum over the asset’s 25-year life.

As the world sets its sights on this essential battery raw material, Euro Manganese CEO Marco Romero sat down with Proactive to talk about the future of the Chvaletice asset.

The Chvaletice tailings deposits are about 90 kilometres east of Prague, surrounded by excellent infrastructure with rail, highway, gas pipeline, water and power available on-site.

Manganese comes to the fore

Electric vehicles sales have been accelerating in the last few years, as have the materials that power them like nickel, cobalt and lithium.

But one such mineral that’s seemed to escape attention is manganese. That’s all starting to change.

High purity manganese is a raw material that is increasingly used in battery chemistries utilised by major automotive companies like Volkswagen, Stellantis, BMW, Volvo, Mercedez Benz and Renault. Battery makers use manganese because of its lower cost and its attractive range, power, safety and charging performance.

As a rising star in the battery raw materials sector, high purity manganese use is increasing rapidly, while production lags, resulting in a growing gap between projected supply and demand.

According to metals and battery research firms ESource and CPM Group, in order to meet the anticipated 2030 demand for high purity manganese sulphate — a raw material used by most lithium-ion battery manufacturers — global production needs to increase nearly 13-fold compared to 2020 levels.

Introducing Chvaletice

For CEO Romero, a manganese project like Chvaletice has the potential to have a significant impact on the battery industry.

“As Europe and the rest of the world go through a once-in-a-century transformation to e-mobility, Euro Manganese stands to become the EU’s only primary producer of battery-grade manganese products.

“We expect our battery-grade offerings will be in high demand at a time when European governments and automakers are working to diversify and expand their raw materials procurement options and establish a reliable, sustainable, local battery supply chain.”

Indeed, Europe is at the epicentre of the electric vehicle revolution.

And the Chvaletice project is surrounded by numerous EV, battery and cathode plants that make up the world’s fastest-growing EV and battery production hub in the world.

A 2019 conceptual site layout for the proposed Chvaletice plant.

What sets the project apart?

Romero notes that EMN’s flagship asset is unique in several ways.

“When Chvaletice begins commercial production, targeted for late 2024/early 2025, it will be one of the world’s largest producers of high-purity manganese, an essential battery raw material used in the majority of electric vehicles.

“The Chvaletice resource is the only significant manganese resource in the EU, and the manganese it contains is in a form that is easy to process.”

Chvaletice also represents an entirely different take on manganese production.

That’s because the asset isn’t a mine — it’s a recycling project.

Sample of exceptionally high purity electrolytic manganese metal made at Chvaletice pilot plant.

Essentially, EMN’s cornerstone project will reprocess a large tailings deposit from a decommissioned mine, turning what was once a waste product into battery gold.

Romero explains: “This means we won’t cause the traditional adverse impacts associated with hard rock mining – no drilling, blasting, crushing or milling. We won’t make a big hole and leave a pile of waste beside it.

“What’s more, by recycling the tailings in compliance with strict Czech and European environmental standards and regulations, we will be eliminating a longstanding source of water pollution and cleaning up and reclaiming an old mine site, all the while producing essential battery raw materials.”

The project’s environmental benefits have resonated with local stakeholders. Since the early days of the project, EMN has proactively and intensely engaged with local authorities and community members.

“We have benefited from their valuable feedback to refine and improve the project design and development plan, with the goal of successfully integrating it into the local environment and life of the community,” says Romero.

The EMN team has actively engaged local community members since the project began.

The production cycle

There are several key steps involved in turning the Chvaletice tailings into high-purity manganese products.

And although it’s the first to create them by recycling historic mine tailings, Euro Manganese has based its proposed production method on conventional, commercial technology that’s been around for decades. It has simply been adapted to meet stringent Czech and European environmental standards and regulations.

First, the raw tailings will be excavated and fed into a processing plant, where they’re mixed with water to create a slurry.

Modules of the Chvaletice Demonstration Plant are being assembled in China for cold-commissioning in preparation for shipment to the Chvaletice site in the Czech Republic.

From here, it is piped into the adjacent process plant, where manganese concentrate is produced using simple, cost-effective magnetic separation.

The concentrate will then be leached and the resulting solution purified, after which very high-purity manganese metal is made via electrolysis.

Euro Manganese’s base case is to further process about two-thirds of the metal to create high-purity manganese sulphate, which is the manganese product used by most nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) precursor cathode active material makers.

The balance of the metal can be sold for other applications, including direct metal-to-cathode production.

Chvaletice is targeted to go on stream by early 2025, and EMN has done extensive metallurgical test-work over several years to design a plant that can sustainably produce very high-quality manganese products.

“Our extensive test-work programs, including our pilot plant, have demonstrated that the proposed process can produce battery-grade manganese products that meet or exceed the highest industry specifications,” says Romero.

Extensive metallurgical test-work has been conducted as part of Chvaletice’s planning process.

A grey ore for a green future

There’s more to battery raw material production than simply supplying a product.

Producers also need to ensure that they’re making materials like high purity manganese in an environmentally friendly, ethically responsible way.

For Euro Manganese, that means designing Chvaletice from the ground up with the best environmental technologies and practices in mind.

The company has opted to remove freshwater from the production equation.

Instead, it’ll turn to contaminated groundwater or industrial wastewater for the extraction processes that generate its battery-grade, high-purity manganese.

Romero noted: “We are also striving to use green sources of energy to operate the plant and we’re pursuing other opportunities to lower an already great environmental footprint.

“We’re even looking at the potential to capture carbon dioxide and hydrogen that are bi-products of high purity manganese production for their re-use in the process.”

The Chvaletice deposit has been fully drilled, with over 98% of the resource now classified as measured, under the JORC 2012 code.

Experienced leaders at the helm

To bring Chvaletice to life, Euro Manganese has amassed a wealth of management and board experience.

There are more than 300 years of know-how between the leaders and directors who will steer the manganese asset into production — something that makes Romero extremely proud.

The EMN team at a manganese sulphate plant under construction in China.

“We painstakingly searched the globe to assemble a highly capable team around this project, which now includes proven experience in all the key disciplines required for success – from project finance and management to high purity manganese production, as well as process design, engineering and construction expertise,” Romero says.

“In the coming weeks and months, we expect to fill a number of important new positions, as we prepare ourselves for Chvaletice’s expected financing and construction, including a new CEO who will lead the company into its next phase of corporate development, while freeing me to focus on growing our business beyond Chvaletice.

“We are particularly proud to have a team with an award-winning track record of excellence in environmental and social practices, something we all care deeply about.”

What lies ahead?

Romero believes the coming year will be a big one for Euro Manganese.

“We are targeting completion of our definitive feasibility study and the submission of our final environmental and social impact assessment early next year.

“Our demonstration plant, which is currently being assembled prior to cold commissioning, is expected to be shipped to our site and installed in the coming months and is targeted to begin production in quarter two of 2022.

Thickener units are positioned on one of the modules of the demonstration plant. They are used in a counter-current-decantation circuit that washes the final process tailings before reclamation.

While the demonstration plant is being constructed and commissioned, the company has restarted the pilot plant it initially operated in 2018. This came in response to product sample requests from certain new customers who were unable to secure earlier pilot plant samples, in advance of the demonstration plant products becoming available later in 2022.

“In the meantime, we are continuing our discussions with prospective customers with a goal of securing binding offtake agreements.

“Ultimately, we hope to be in a position to make a final investment decision in late 2022, which would set the stage for the construction of our commercial plant during 2023 and 2024.”

The bottom line

Located at the heart of the world’s fastest-growing EV hub, Europe, Chvaletice is primed to deliver a locally and sustainably made battery metal to the market, just when it needs it most.

The way Romero sees it, it’s a project that needs to be developed fast.

“Our Chvaletice Manganese Project stands to become a strategic raw materials supplier, at a time when a growing gap between battery-grade manganese supply and demand is emerging. We’re in the right place at the right time.”

Groundwater monitoring at Chvaletice.