Oct 4 2011
In an exclusive inSITE Report, resourceINTELLIGENCE takes investors on a tour of American Manganese's (TSX-V:AMY) (Pink Sheets:AMYZF) (Frankfurt:2AM) new pilot plant to investigate what could be the world's lowest cost recovery of electrolytic manganese (EMM).
Watch the inSITE Report on the front page of www.resourceintelligence.net here:
http://www.resourceintelligence.net/video-american-manganese-insite-report-pilot-plant-to-produce-low-cost-emm/22821
American Manganese (TSX-V:AMY) hired industry leading consultants Kemetco Research to solve the problem of expensive water recovery in the production of EMM.
Typically, in the final stages of EMM production, water is evaporated from the remaining sodium solution at high heat. This method is cost prohibitive and not environmentally friendly.
The Kemetco process removes the salts from the water by lowering the temperature and then forcing the remaining solution through a nanofiltration system. This leaves just crystallized sodium sulfate, which can be sold for about $100 per tonne, and sulfur dioxide and water, which are recycled in the process. As such, the Kemetco Process costs less - as little as $0.44 per pound of EMM produced - and also generates revenues from the process of recycling water.
This process is also substantially more environmentally friendly than existing methods of EMM production.
American Manganese's Artillery Peak project in Arizona has manganese resources of 14.9 billion pounds indicated and 3.5 billion pounds inferred. (226 Mt indicated grading 2.99% Mn, 56 Mt grading 2.84% Mn.) This could be a boon for American Manganese investors, considering that manganese is the 4th most consumed metal in the world and is essential in most steel making.
Ironically, whereas "grade is king" for many explorers and producers, that's not the case for American Manganese. The Kemetco Process produces manganese metal from low-grade resources at a lower per pound cost than just about any high grade deposit in the world.
As such, American Manganese's (TSX-V:AMY) new production method puts the company on excellent footing in the race for lower costs in steel production. The company's trading range is about $0.40 to $0.60 per share. The company's billions of pounds of recoverable manganese metal today sell for approximately $1.80 per pound. With its patent-pending production method, it will cost the company as little as $0.44 per pound to recover the EMM.