Summary
- The benchmark is volatile. USGS reports the annual average price of 44% manganese ore delivered to China between $4.34 per mtu in 2016 and $7.16 in 2018, with an estimate of $4.50 for 2025.
- China dominates imports. It declared 29 to 34 million tonnes a year from 2019 to 2025, and its average declared price fell from $211 per tonne in 2018 to $134 in 2025.
- Where the ore comes from changes the price. In 2024 China declared $201 per tonne for Gabonese ore and $192 for Australian ore, against $144 for South African, $115 for Ghanaian and $82 for Malaysian ore.
- India's declared imports rose from 1.8 million tonnes in 2016 to 6.7 million tonnes in 2025.
- In 2024 the benchmark rose 15% while China's average import price fell about 4%, and no source read for the report explains the gap.
Customs data groups all manganese ores of 20% Mn and above in one code, so the import prices average many grades and are not directly comparable with a 44% benchmark. The report explains this and the other limits.
What is in the full report
5 pages, as a PDF.
- The benchmark series for 2016 to 2025 with year-on-year changes and a chart
- What sourced reports say moved the price in each year they explain
- Declared import prices and quantities for China, India, Japan, South Korea, Norway and Malaysia
- China's and India's prices by supplier: Australia, Gabon, South Africa, Brazil, Ghana, Myanmar and Malaysia
- How China's average import price compares with the benchmark
- The data limits and which figures were excluded, and why