In the global manganese ore supply system, high-grade manganese carbonate ore is a scarce resource. With its unique large-reserve, high-grade manganese carbonate ore resources, Ghana occupies an irreplaceable position. In recent years, as China's manganese industry has accelerated its transition toward green and low-carbon development, Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore—leveraging its large reserves, high grade, stable supply, notable effect in reducing manganese slag generation, and its development and operation by a Chinese enterprise—has become an excellent substitute for domestic manganese carbonate ore and has shown great potential in the production of manganese-based ferroalloys, playing an important role in ensuring the security and controllability of China's manganese industry chain and supply chain and in leading the green and low-carbon transformation of the manganese industry.
I. A Unique Position in the Global Manganese Ore Landscape: The Only Source of High-Grade Manganese Carbonate Ore
Global manganese ore resources are highly concentrated, with manganese oxide ore and manganese carbonate ore presenting differentiated supply patterns. Unlike Australia, Gabon, Brazil, and other countries that are dominated by manganese oxide ore, Ghana is dominated by high-grade manganese carbonate ore and is the only country in the world that has achieved large-scale mining and stable export of high-grade manganese carbonate ore.
By the end of 2025, Ghana's manganese ore reserves stood at 69 million tonnes (in terms of metal content) [1], ranking fifth in the world. Ghana's manganese carbonate ore is produced at the Nsuta mining area in the southwest of the country, the world's sole supply base for high-grade manganese carbonate ore. In 2017, Ningxia Tianyuan Manganese Industry Group completed the full acquisition of Consolidated Minerals Limited (CML) of the United Kingdom, thereby indirectly holding equity in Ghana Manganese Company Limited and taking full responsibility for the development and operation of the Nsuta Mine. Supported by the refined management and operation of Ningxia Tianyuan Manganese Industry Group, Ghana's manganese carbonate ore output rose from 2.31 million tonnes in 2020 to 5.19 million tonnes in 2025, an increase of 124.68%. In August 2026, Ghana's monthly manganese carbonate ore output is expected to reach a record 700,000 tonnes. Ghana has thus become the fastest-growing region of global manganese ore supply, while Ningxia Tianyuan Manganese Industry Group has become the world's largest manganese ore producer and supplier.
II. The Ore Supply Backbone of China's Electrolytic Manganese Industry: Rapidly Growing Import Scale
China is the world's largest producer of electrolytic manganese metal, with its capacity and output together accounting for 98% of the global total. However, China's domestic manganese resources suffer from structural deficiencies characterized by being "low-grade, complex, and scarce": high-grade manganese ore with a grade above 30% makes up less than 2% of total reserves, the average grade of domestic carbonate manganese ore is only about 13%, and most deposits are mined underground. Under the combined impact of declining resource endowment and tightening environmental regulations, China's output of carbonate manganese ore has shrunk year by year and can no longer meet the ore demand of its electrolytic manganese production.
Against this backdrop, Ghanaian carbonate manganese ore has become the most important supplementary raw-material source for China's electrolytic manganese industry, with import volumes growing rapidly and continuously. According to statistics from the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC), imports of carbonate manganese ore from Ghana rose from 3.15 million tonnes in 2023 to 5.32 million tonnes in 2025 — an increase of nearly 70% — and over 50% of China's national electrolytic manganese output is now produced using Ghanaian carbonate manganese ore. As domestic carbonate manganese resources keep declining, Ghana's high-grade carbonate manganese ore has emerged as the optimal substitute for China's domestic ore and a core supply pillar underpinning the stable operation of the country's electrolytic manganese industry.
III. Unique Natural Resource Endowment: Three Core Qualities Building Differentiated Advantages
Pursuant to GB/T 3714‑2017, Manganese Carbonate Ore, manganese carbonate ore for electrolytic manganese metal production is classified into four grades based on manganese and impurity contents. Grade‑4 ore requires Mn ≥14% and total Fe ≤4.0%, while Grade‑1 ore requires Mn ≥20% and total Fe ≤2.5%. Practical production favours high manganese content with few and low‑level impurity elements; in particular, iron and heavy‑metal contents should be kept as low as practicable.
Compared with domestic Chinese manganese carbonate ore, Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore delivers comprehensive quality advantages for EMM production. Its manganese and impurity parameters substantially exceed the Grade‑1 requirements specified in GB/T 3714‑2017, Manganese Carbonate Ore.
First, outstanding grade advantage. Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore maintains a stable manganese grade of 28%‑30%, more than double that of domestic Chinese manganese carbonate ore. To produce one tonne of electrolytic manganese metal, roughly four tonnes of Ghanaian ore are required, versus approximately ten tonnes of domestic Chinese ore. This represents a qualitative improvement in resource‑utilisation efficiency.
Second, extremely low harmful impurities. Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore contains less than 2% iron, lower than the ~2.5% iron content typical for domestic Chinese ore. Its alumina and heavy‑metal impurity levels are very low, greatly reducing impurity‑removal procedures and auxiliary‑material consumption during production.
Third, favourable mining conditions. Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore bodies are characterised by shallow depth, considerable thickness, and strong geological continuity, rendering them well‑suited for large‑scale mechanised open‑pit mining. Mining costs and safety‑management performance are significantly superior to those of China’s underground‑based domestic manganese mines. The Nsuta mine is located only 80 km from the Port of Takoradi and benefits from direct rail connectivity, which helps keep ore‑transportation costs low.
IV. The Key to Source Reduction of Manganese Slag: Meeting National Requirements for Comprehensive Solid Waste Treatment
The core value of high‑grade Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore lies not only in cost reduction and efficiency gains at the production stage, but also in its decisive role in source‑level reduction of industrial solid waste. It is fully aligned with China’s policy priorities for green and low‑carbon industrial development and comprehensive solid‑waste management during the 15th Five‑Year Plan period.
In January 2026, the State Council of China released the Action Plan for the Comprehensive Treatment of Solid Waste, which explicitly calls for “in‑depth special rectification and the establishment of a comprehensive solid‑waste management system featuring source reduction, in‑process control, end‑use utilisation and full‑chain harmless treatment”. In July, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued the 15th Five‑Year Plan for Green and Low‑Carbon Industrial Development, setting out to “advance structural adjustment within the electrolytic manganese industry and cut manganese‑slag generation. By 2030, the comprehensive resource‑utilisation rate of manganese slag shall reach 30%”. MIIT’s Work Plan on Accelerating Comprehensive Utilization of Manganese Slag specifies that “the manganese‑ore grade fed into the leaching process shall be raised to effectively lower manganese‑slag output”.
This suite of policies and standards demonstrates that source reduction holds the key to manganese‑slag mitigation, and ore grade constitutes the fundamental factor governing manganese‑slag generation. Accordingly, producing electrolytic manganese metal with high‑grade manganese carbonate ore represents the most effective and practical approach to curbing manganese‑slag output.
Under the Cleaner‑Production Evaluation Index System for the Electrolytic Manganese Industry, jointly issued by China’s National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Ecology and Environment and MIIT, manganese‑slag output per tonne of finished product serves as a core binding indicator for assessing cleaner‑production performance. For production routes based on manganese carbonate ore, three benchmark levels are defined: Level I (advanced benchmark): ≤ 6.8 tonnes; Level II (market‑access threshold): ≤ 8.4 tonnes; Level III (general standard): ≤ 10.6 tonnes. Production data from Ningxia Tianyuan Manganese Group shows that when EMM is produced entirely from high‑grade Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore, manganese‑slag output per tonne of product falls sharply from 10 tonnes (using low‑grade domestic Chinese ore) to approximately 4 tonnes — a 60 % reduction. This meets Level‑I cleaner‑production requirements and performs far better than the Level‑I threshold. Based on China’s 2025 national EMM output of 1.479 million tonnes, full adoption of Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore could cut annual manganese‑slag generation by 4.3 million tonnes, delivering remarkable source‑reduction benefits. Against the backdrop of China’s push for source reduction of industrial solid waste and “zero‑waste city” initiatives, utilising imported high‑grade manganese ore has become a logical industry trend for the green transition of China’s electrolytic‑manganese sector.
In addition, manganese slag derived from high‑grade Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore offers distinct advantages in terms of harmless disposal and comprehensive resource recovery compared with slag generated from low‑grade domestic Chinese manganese carbonate ore. Thanks to its high ore grade, less slag is produced. Harmless treatment via high‑temperature calcination consumes relatively little energy, making the process technically simpler and economically viable. Following high‑temperature calcination, sulphur can be efficiently recovered to produce sulphuric acid, which is recycled back into EMM manufacturing and substantially lowers overall production costs. Desulphurised manganese slag can further be processed into cement, building materials, autoclaved bricks, construction aggregates and sub‑grade fill for roadbeds, achieving high‑value resource utilisation.
V. A Universally Adaptable "All-Purpose Ore": Sintered Manganese Ore Opens a New Path to Lower Cost and Higher Quality in Manganese Alloys
Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore has long been known as an "all-purpose ore." In addition to its core strategic value in electrolytic manganese metal production, it also demonstrates all-round quality and cost advantages in the production of manganese ferroalloys, making it the core high-quality raw material for optimizing the raw-material mix of China's silicomanganese industry and breaking the supply bottleneck of high-grade ore.
Using Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore to produce manganese alloys offers the following outstanding features and advantages. First, Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore is among the commercial manganese ores with the highest Mn/Fe ratio in the world, and its basicity (MgO+CaO)/SiO2 falls exactly within the furnace-feed basicity range of 0.6–0.8 for silicomanganese production, so pure Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore alone can fully produce silicomanganese while greatly reducing the addition of flux raw materials such as dolomite, directly lowering power consumption in the smelting process. Second, after sintering and enrichment (hereinafter "Ghanaian sintered manganese ore"), the manganese grade can be raised to above 40% with the Mn/Fe ratio maintained above 24; its stable composition, large specific surface area, high mechanical strength, and good burden permeability substantially lower the strength requirements for reductants, allowing semi-coke to replace coke at a ratio of up to 60%, effectively reducing production costs while facilitating the long-term stable operation of the submerged arc furnace—offering significant advantages over producing silicomanganese from South African semi-carbonate manganese ore. Third, Ghanaian sintered manganese ore can directly replace manganese-rich slag as a high-grade manganese ore, eliminating the energy consumption and emissions of the manganese-rich slag production stage and further simplifying the process and compressing intermediate costs. Fourth, Ghanaian sintered manganese ore can also be flexibly blended with high-iron manganese ore to optimize the raw-material mix through precise proportioning, greatly reducing the overall production cost of silicomanganese while guaranteeing product grade. In addition to silicomanganese, Ghanaian sintered manganese ore also shows considerable potential in producing high-silicon silicomanganese, ferromanganese, and other manganese alloy products. Overall, Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore is characterized by a wide range of applications, large market absorption capacity, and high quality reliability, giving it extremely strong differentiated competitiveness in the global manganese alloy raw-material market.
VI. Broad Long-Term Growth Prospects: Continuously Expanding Resource Value and Application Scenarios
As a globally scarce base of high-grade manganese carbonate resources, Ghana's manganese ore industry holds tremendous potential for future development:
First, ample room for releasing resources and production capacity. The area currently explored by Ghana Manganese Company is less than 180 km², whereas the total mining-rights area is about 567.53 km². Taking into account the local geological conditions and the fact that the Yaka and Ndobonso areas have never undergone large-scale mining historically, the prospective resources of Ghana's manganese ore are estimated to exceed 2.6 billion tonnes[2]. Ningxia Tianyuan Manganese Industry Group has continued to step up its development of Ghana's manganese ore resources, purchasing large numbers of mining excavators, mining trucks, and other auxiliary mining equipment, and, through cooperation with large central state-owned enterprises, renovating and upgrading port yards and railway transport lines. Ghana's annual output of high-grade manganese carbonate ore is expected to achieve exponential growth.
Second, the new-energy sector opens a new track. With the rapid development of the global new-energy vehicle and new-type energy-storage industries, demand for trimanganese tetroxide (Mn3O4), high-purity manganese sulfate, and manganese-based materials such as lithium manganese iron phosphate (LMFP) and lithium-rich manganese-based cathodes has surged. The low-impurity, easy-to-purify characteristics of Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore give it natural advantages in preparing electrolytic manganese and manganese-based battery materials. Amid the vigorous development of the new-energy battery industry, manganese carbonate ore—with its significant advantages of directly producing high-end manganese products and its broad applicability—is expected to unlock long-term growth potential.
Third, China–Africa cooperation releases policy dividends. China has listed manganese as a strategic mineral and supports enterprises in carrying out overseas resource development in an orderly manner. China and Ghana enjoy deep political mutual trust and strong economic complementarity, and mining cooperation is a core pillar of their bilateral practical cooperation, providing solid support for the overseas resource deployment of Chinese enterprises. Ningxia Tianyuan Manganese Industry Group attaches great importance to its relationship with the Ghanaian government. While developing mining, it also helps Ghana grow its economy, improve infrastructure, increase employment, and better people's livelihoods, creating a favorable external environment for the sustained development of Ghana's high-grade manganese carbonate ore.
As the world's sole source of high-grade manganese carbonate ore, Ghana has become an irreplaceable and indispensable part of the global manganese industry landscape. As a globally unique and scarce resource, Ghanaian manganese carbonate ore will continue to grow in strategic value and become an important force driving the green and low-carbon transformation of the global manganese industry chain.
References:
[1] USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries (2026); Ghana Manganese Company JORC Resource Report
[2] Ghana Manganese Company internal materials