INTERVIEW: Giyani Metals on track for K.Hill manganese feasibility study, demo plant

Vancouver, British Columbia-based mineral resource company Giyani Metals is on track to release the feasibility study for its K.Hill battery-grade manganese project in Botswana's Kanye Basin in September, with construction of a demonstration plant also scheduled to start in 2022, CEO Robin Birchall said in an interview with S&P Global Commodity Insights.

With a shortage of manganese sulfate expected because of battery demand for electric vehicles, Birchall said there were opportunities for multiple producers in the space.

"In our market, you actually have very significant unit growth in what they're trying to produce," he said.

"We're almost out of that initial phase ... it's the bottom of the curve and when we look back, we'll say it wasn't that much, but for now it's a lot," Birchall said, adding that there were a number of large battery makers raising money and looking to secure raw material supply from a limited number of manganese sulfate producers.

Platts' daily battery grade manganese sulfate assessment was assessed at $993/mt Aug.1, steady with where it was launched July 18, according to S&P Global.

According to the April 2021 preliminary economic assessment, K.Hill is expected to produce an average of 890,400 mt of high-purity manganese sulfate monohydrate over its 10-year mine life, or 40,000-115,000 mt/year of high-purity electrolytic manganese metal.

"The guidance is around 100,000 mt/year, but we'll increase that, we'll probably double that," Birchall said, noting that there had been an increase in the project's mineral resource.

In February, the company increased the project's indicated resources 31% to 2.1 million mt at an average grade of 19.3% manganese oxide, which equated to around 410,000 mt of contained MnO or about 1 million mt of HPMSM, and the inferred resources were boosted by 121% to 3.1 million mt at an average grade of 16.9% MnO, equating to around 530,000 mt of contained MnO, or about 1.3 million mt of HPMSM.

The deposit was relatively small, but Birchall said Giyani was not focused on scale, but rather on the type of mineralization and whether the grade was good enough.

"We do want to be able to be big enough that a battery maker when they look at a jurisdiction and at getting secure supply over a cycle ... they want us to be big enough so we can cover an entire jurisdiction for at least one cycle," Birchall said.

A production cycle in the automobile sector was at least eight years, but optimally 10-12 years, he added.

While Giyani was in discussions with automakers about its future production, Birchall said these would not be the companies signing offtakes for K.Hill's product, but rather it would be battery makers, which would then supply automakers.

"But we have to be accredited or approved by automobile companies beforehand," he said, with all vehicle components having to be pre-approved for safety purposes and to avoid recalls.

Demonstration plant

Giyani is due to make an announcement on the construction of its demo plant shortly, Birchall said, with two crystallizers already ordered and being built.

The company previously announced the plant would have two crystallizers, allowing it to produce 600 kg/day of dry HPMSM crystals, depending on the manganese grade of the ore feed.

It plans to commission the plant in the first half of 2023 and then deliver first battery materials to potential customers in the same year.

Giyani currently had around C$18.5 million ($14.4 million) in cash, although Birchall estimated that it would require at least C$300 million before producing its first material.

The K.Hill project has a post-tax net present value of $332 million, an internal rate of return of 80% after tax, and capital spending of C$159 million, with a payback period within three years, according to the PEA.

The company also owns the nearby Otse and Lobatse manganese prospects in Botswana.