【Ferro-alloys.com】:JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Giyani Metals is a company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange in Toronto, Canada. Through its wholly-owned Botswana subsidiary Menzi Battery Metals, Giyani is the owner of the past producing K.Hill manganese mining project in Botswana.

Giyani is now intent on producing battery manganese – high-pressure manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) – at K.Hill, which is being developed as an integrated mining and processing operation.

HPMSM is on its way into battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and battery energy storage for good technical and cost reasons, with formulations increasingly including this manganese in batteries. If South Africa plays its cards right, local operations will be able to earn very important export revenues for this country.

But what has caused some bewilderment in South Africa is that Giyani has secured $16-million worth of funding from South Africa’s State-owned Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), ahead of South Africa’s own Manganese Metal Co (MMC) in Mbombela, Mpumalanga, which has a half-century of experience in adding value to manganese.

Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) senior economist Gaylor Montmasson-Clair describes the Mbombela company as “a South African industrial jewel” that could be much bigger than what it is today. He says its a one-of-a-kind company that should be supported on its growth trajectory.

TIPS is an independent, non-profit, economic research institution based in Tshwane that was established in 1996 to support economic policy development, with an emphasis on industrial policy in South Africa and the region.

• [Editor:Alakay]