BigMint is a Market Intelligence and Price Reporting firm that caters to the data and analytics requirements of businesses in the commodities sector. It publishes real time prices and information, which is impartial, independent and reliable, sourced from all industry interfaces – sellers, buyers, agents and traders. This data is filtered and passed through very stringent, calculative assessments before final prices are derived, thereby giving our clients accurate pricing.

Go to List

India: Bids remain firm m-o-m in Sandur's latest manganese ore auction

...

Manganese Ore

BigMint Bureau

78 Reads

14 Jan 2025, 17:10 IST

India: Bids remain firm m-o-m in Sandur's latest manganese ore auction

Buyers book only 20% of offered quantity

Buyers largely prefer lower grades (30-32%)

Sandur Manganese and Iron Ore (SMIORE) conducted an auction for around 72,241 tonnes (t) of manganese ore (Mn: 20-34%, -10-100 mm) on 13 January 2025. Notably, bids for the Mn: 30-32% and Mn: 26-28% grades were firm m-o-m compared to the previous auction, on 18 December 2024.

According to sources, around 14,112 t (Mn: 20-30%) were booked at INR 2,580-11,370/t, while nearly 58,129 t remained unsold, as per data compiled by BigMint. This indicates that only around 20% of the offered quantity was booked.

Buyers largely showed a preference for lower grades (30-32%), as around 11 lots of the same were successfully sold. These were the highest sold among all grades.

Key observations

Bids remain firm m-o-m: Bids for Mn: 30-32% were at INR 9,960/t ($116/t) in the auction on 13 January, unchanged compared to those seen on 18 December 2024.

Bids for the Mn: 26-28% grade were at INR 8,290/t ($97/t) in the latest auction, again unchanged m-o-m.

Bids steady against base prices: In the latest auction, base prices and bids were at the same levels. For instance, the base price of Mn: 28-30% was set at INR 9,380/t ($109/t), while the weighted average of bids for the same stood at INR 9,380/t ($109/t).

Another grade, Mn: 22-24%, had its base price fixed at INR 5,230/t ($61/t), and bids concluded at a weighted average of INR 5,230/t ($61/t).

Similarly, there were no differences between base prices and bids for the other grades (20-22%, 26-28%, 30-32%, and 32-34%).

The hike in manganese alloy prices in the domestic and export markets has lent support to domestic manganese ore tags. To illustrate, silico manganese (60-14) prices in Vizag have increased by INR 2,300/t ($27/t) since mid-December 2024 to *end December. This majorly contributed to the stability in bids in Sandur's latest manganese ore auction against the one held last month.

Note: * end December has been added to the story.