3/12/2010 6:00:00 AM
Manganese mine south of Kingman set to open again
Kingman company gets drilling contract
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KINGMAN - Manganese mining in southern Mohave County may start in the next few weeks.
Rocher Deboule Minerals announced Tuesday it has received drilling permits from the Bureau of Land Management and contracted with Brown Drilling of Kingman to start mining at Artillery Peak, located 80 to 90 miles south and east of Kingman.
According to a company news release, the first drill at the site was supposed to arrive some time this week, and a second will arrive in the next 10 days.
The operation would employ about 100 people, and there are plans to possibly create a refining plant at the site.
The company plans to use a leaching process that uses chemicals to pull the metal from crushed rock and then uses electricity to gather the pure ore.
The mine, according to Rocher, contains the largest sources of manganese located in the United States.
Manganese is a necessary metal used in the manufacturing of steel, Rocher Deboule President Larry Reaugh said in June. The steel industry uses about 30 billion pounds of the metal a year.
About 95 percent of the manganese used in the U.S. steel industry comes from overseas, he said. The richest and purest sources of manganese in the world are located in South Africa, Gabon, Mexico, South America, Australia and China.
A large quantity of the metal used in the U.S. comes from China, Reaugh said. As industry in China has increased, the country has started to use more of its manganese sources locally.
The U.S. has a large reserve of iron ore, the other major ingredient in making steel. However, the U.S. has very few reserves of manganese, he said.
The U.S. steel industry would be in a pinch if its overseas sources of manganese is cut off.
Historically, the U.S. has stockpiled manganese twice before. The first time was during World War I, when the major supplier of metal was Germany. The stockpiles were sold or used between WWI and WWII.
The second time the U.S. stockpiled manganese was after WWII, when the largest supplier was Russia. That stockpile has now been depleted, and the U.S. Bureau of Mines has been looking for reserves of the material within the U.S.
One such reserve is at Artillery Peak, which has been mined for the metal before. Rocher Deboule believes there may be as much as 150 million tons of 3 to 4 percent grade ore at the site, which would make it the largest source of manganese in the U.S.
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