# KEY NUMBERS
**$5.4/dmtu** : Australian manganese ore, 42% Mn lump, CIF major Chinese ports, June 2026
**$5.4/dmtu** : Australian manganese ore, 42% Mn lump, CIF major Chinese ports, June 2026
**$0.5/dmtu** : Month on month price decrease in Australian ore for June vs May
**$5.0/dmtu** : South African semi carbonate manganese ore, 37% Mn lump, June 2026
**$0.4/dmtu** : Month on month decline in South African ore pricing for June
**$4.48/dmtu** : 2025 peak price for manganese ore, reached in early spring
**$1,309/MT** : Manganese price in the USA in Q1 2026
**$953/MT** : Manganese price in China in Q1 2026
**10.1 Million MT** : Global manganese ore production in H1 2025
**3.7 Million MT** : China port manganese stocks at their lowest point in March 2025
**16%** : India's share of global manganese ore imports, second only to China
**$167/tonne** : Average global manganese ore import price in 2024
**1.95% CAGR** : Projected growth rate for the global manganese market through 2034
## MARKET ANALYSIS
South32 has announced its June 2026 manganese ore quotations. Australian lump ore with 42% manganese content is now quoted at $5.4 per dry metric tonne unit, CIF major Chinese ports. That is down $0.5 from May. South African semi carbonate ore with 37% manganese content has come in at $5.0 per dmtu, also down $0.4 from the prior month.
Seasonal. Orderly. Expected.
Asia is heading into its wet season. Construction steel demand in southern China slows every year around this time as rains disrupt site activity and mills work through existing inventory rather than building new stock. Manganese alloy producers pull back their spot buying. Contract prices ease. This is not a story about demand falling off a cliff. It is the market breathing out after months of running higher.
What makes June 2026 worth examining more carefully is the starting point. Manganese ore entered this year at a 17 month high, supported by a genuine pickup in steel activity from India and a recovery in Chinese industrial production that, while uneven, was real enough to draw down port inventories meaningfully. China port manganese stocks fell to around 3.7 million metric tonnes in March 2025, the lowest level in years, as alloy producers consumed supply faster than imports were arriving. Prices responded, and by early spring 2025 the market had touched $4.48 per dmtu, its strongest level of the year. The Q1 2026 US price of $1,309 per metric tonne confirmed that the recovery held well into the new year.
The June softening is not a reversal of that story. It is a pause. The question procurement teams are actually asking is not whether prices are falling but how far they fall before buyers come back in, and whether the seasonal lull runs through July or turns earlier if Chinese infrastructure activity picks up in the second half of the year as Beijing has repeatedly signalled it intends.
Supply is not the constraint here. Global manganese ore production climbed to approximately 10.1 million metric tonnes in the first half of 2025, with South Africa and Gabon both running strong export programmes and Australian shipments fully recovering from the disruptions of 2024. South32 is back in the market at competitive prices. The ore is available. The issue is timing. Buyers know that and are using the seasonal window to negotiate rather than rush.
## WHY INDIA CHANGES THE CALCULATION
Seasonal patterns matter less when structural demand is accelerating underneath them. That is the dynamic India introduces into the manganese market, and it is why the current price softening deserves careful reading by anyone managing procurement positions in silico manganese or ferromanganese.
India is the second largest importer of manganese ore in the world, accounting for 16% of global imports. Only China buys more. That position reflects a straightforward reality. India's domestic manganese ore resources are insufficient in grade and volume to supply the ferromanganese and silico manganese producers concentrated in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal at the scale those producers now require. Seaborne procurement is not optional. It is structural.
And that structural demand is growing. JSW Steel has committed to expanding from 31.9 MTPA to 48.8 MTPA by 2030. Tata Steel is ramping Kalinganagar. New integrated capacity is in the pipeline across multiple producers. Every additional tonne of steel that comes out of an Indian blast furnace or electric arc furnace consumes manganese, and the procurement requirement for silico manganese and high carbon ferromanganese grows with each capacity addition that comes online.
The average global manganese ore import price in 2024 sat at $167 per tonne, versus an average export price of $105 per tonne. That $62 gap is freight, insurance, port handling and intermediary costs. It is also a reminder that the delivered economics of manganese procurement in India are not purely a function of benchmark ore pricing. When freight costs are elevated, as they currently are given the Middle East conflict and its effect on fuel and vessel routing, the benefit of a $0.5 per dmtu dip in Australian ore pricing at the Chinese port level translates into a smaller landed cost improvement at an Indian port than the headline number suggests.
## THE BATTERY QUESTION
It would be incomplete to discuss the manganese market in 2026 without acknowledging what is happening in the battery sector, even if it does not yet move the pricing needle in a way that procurement teams feel on a monthly basis.
Electric vehicle manufacturers and cathode developers are actively working to reduce their dependence on nickel and cobalt, and manganese rich battery chemistries are a direct beneficiary of that effort. High purity manganese sulphate, produced from refined ore rather than metallurgical grade material, is emerging as a meaningful demand category that sits alongside rather than inside the steelmaking market. The volumes are not yet large enough to compete with steel for manganese ore on a tonne for tonne basis, but the direction of travel is clear.
For producers and traders who can access both markets, the medium term story for manganese is more interesting than any single quarter's pricing movement suggests. A commodity that serves both the expanding steel industry across Asia and the battery supply chain being built globally is not facing structural demand pressure. It is accumulating demand tailwinds from two directions at once.
## WHAT TO WATCH NEXT
Chinese port inventory levels over the next four to six weeks will tell the June story. If stocks hold comfortably through the seasonal lull, the pricing softness could extend into July. If mills begin restocking earlier than expected ahead of anticipated second half infrastructure activity, the current contract prices may prove to be the floor rather than a stepping stone to further declines.
India's domestic steel output in May and June is the other variable worth watching. April production dipped month on month after a strong March, a normal seasonal adjustment. Whether May shows a recovery will indicate how quickly Indian blast furnaces are pulling through raw material inputs including manganese ore, and whether domestic silico manganese producers are running at the utilisation rates that support active procurement.
The Q3 quarterly benchmark negotiation for manganese alloys, which typically takes shape in July, will be the first formal pricing reference that reflects how the seasonal lull has resolved. That negotiation is worth watching closely, both for the absolute level it reaches and for what it signals about how major buyers in China and Europe are reading second half demand.
## MARKET OUTLOOK
A $0.5 per dmtu decline in June contract pricing is not a warning. It is a seasonal adjustment in a market that entered 2026 from a position of genuine strength and is now pausing while buyers assess inventory positions and wait for second half demand signals.
The floor under manganese ore prices is well supported. India's structural import demand is not going away. China's steelmaking activity, while slower than in previous years, is not collapsing. And the battery sector is quietly building a parallel demand base that will matter more with each passing year.
Buyers who treat the current window as an opportunity to manage procurement costs and extend contract coverage on reasonable terms may find the logic of that decision looks quite sound when the Q3 benchmark lands.
**$5.0/dmtu** : South African semi carbonate manganese ore, 37% Mn lump, June 2026
**$0.4/dmtu** : Month on month decline in South African ore pricing for June
**$4.48/dmtu** : 2025 peak price for manganese ore, reached in early spring
**$1,309/MT** : Manganese price in the USA in Q1 2026
**$953/MT** : Manganese price in China in Q1 2026
**10.1 Million MT** : Global manganese ore production in H1 2025
**3.7 Million MT** : China port manganese stocks at their lowest point in March 2025
**16%** : India's share of global manganese ore imports, second only to China
**$167/tonne** : Average global manganese ore import price in 2024
**1.95% CAGR** : Projected growth rate for the global manganese market through 2034
## MARKET ANALYSIS
South32 has announced its June 2026 manganese ore quotations. Australian lump ore with 42% manganese content is now quoted at $5.4 per dry metric tonne unit, CIF major Chinese ports. That is down $0.5 from May. South African semi carbonate ore with 37% manganese content has come in at $5.0 per dmtu, also down $0.4 from the prior month.
Seasonal. Orderly. Expected.
Asia is heading into its wet season. Construction steel demand in southern China slows every year around this time as rains disrupt site activity and mills work through existing inventory rather than building new stock. Manganese alloy producers pull back their spot buying. Contract prices ease. This is not a story about demand falling off a cliff. It is the market breathing out after months of running higher.
What makes June 2026 worth examining more carefully is the starting point. Manganese ore entered this year at a 17 month high, supported by a genuine pickup in steel activity from India and a recovery in Chinese industrial production that, while uneven, was real enough to draw down port inventories meaningfully. China port manganese stocks fell to around 3.7 million metric tonnes in March 2025, the lowest level in years, as alloy producers consumed supply faster than imports were arriving. Prices responded, and by early spring 2025 the market had touched $4.48 per dmtu, its strongest level of the year. The Q1 2026 US price of $1,309 per metric tonne confirmed that the recovery held well into the new year.
The June softening is not a reversal of that story. It is a pause. The question procurement teams are actually asking is not whether prices are falling but how far they fall before buyers come back in, and whether the seasonal lull runs through July or turns earlier if Chinese infrastructure activity picks up in the second half of the year as Beijing has repeatedly signalled it intends.
Supply is not the constraint here. Global manganese ore production climbed to approximately 10.1 million metric tonnes in the first half of 2025, with South Africa and Gabon both running strong export programmes and Australian shipments fully recovering from the disruptions of 2024. South32 is back in the market at competitive prices. The ore is available. The issue is timing. Buyers know that and are using the seasonal window to negotiate rather than rush.
## WHY INDIA CHANGES THE CALCULATION
Seasonal patterns matter less when structural demand is accelerating underneath them. That is the dynamic India introduces into the manganese market, and it is why the current price softening deserves careful reading by anyone managing procurement positions in silico manganese or ferromanganese.
India is the second largest importer of manganese ore in the world, accounting for 16% of global imports. Only China buys more. That position reflects a straightforward reality. India's domestic manganese ore resources are insufficient in grade and volume to supply the ferromanganese and silico manganese producers concentrated in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal at the scale those producers now require. Seaborne procurement is not optional. It is structural.
And that structural demand is growing. JSW Steel has committed to expanding from 31.9 MTPA to 48.8 MTPA by 2030. Tata Steel is ramping Kalinganagar. New integrated capacity is in the pipeline across multiple producers. Every additional tonne of steel that comes out of an Indian blast furnace or electric arc furnace consumes manganese, and the procurement requirement for silico manganese and high carbon ferromanganese grows with each capacity addition that comes online.
The average global manganese ore import price in 2024 sat at $167 per tonne, versus an average export price of $105 per tonne. That $62 gap is freight, insurance, port handling and intermediary costs. It is also a reminder that the delivered economics of manganese procurement in India are not purely a function of benchmark ore pricing. When freight costs are elevated, as they currently are given the Middle East conflict and its effect on fuel and vessel routing, the benefit of a $0.5 per dmtu dip in Australian ore pricing at the Chinese port level translates into a smaller landed cost improvement at an Indian port than the headline number suggests.
## THE BATTERY QUESTION
It would be incomplete to discuss the manganese market in 2026 without acknowledging what is happening in the battery sector, even if it does not yet move the pricing needle in a way that procurement teams feel on a monthly basis.
Electric vehicle manufacturers and cathode developers are actively working to reduce their dependence on nickel and cobalt, and manganese rich battery chemistries are a direct beneficiary of that effort. High purity manganese sulphate, produced from refined ore rather than metallurgical grade material, is emerging as a meaningful demand category that sits alongside rather than inside the steelmaking market. The volumes are not yet large enough to compete with steel for manganese ore on a tonne for tonne basis, but the direction of travel is clear.
For producers and traders who can access both markets, the medium term story for manganese is more interesting than any single quarter's pricing movement suggests. A commodity that serves both the expanding steel industry across Asia and the battery supply chain being built globally is not facing structural demand pressure. It is accumulating demand tailwinds from two directions at once.
## WHAT TO WATCH NEXT
Chinese port inventory levels over the next four to six weeks will tell the June story. If stocks hold comfortably through the seasonal lull, the pricing softness could extend into July. If mills begin restocking earlier than expected ahead of anticipated second half infrastructure activity, the current contract prices may prove to be the floor rather than a stepping stone to further declines.
India's domestic steel output in May and June is the other variable worth watching. April production dipped month on month after a strong March, a normal seasonal adjustment. Whether May shows a recovery will indicate how quickly Indian blast furnaces are pulling through raw material inputs including manganese ore, and whether domestic silico manganese producers are running at the utilisation rates that support active procurement.
The Q3 quarterly benchmark negotiation for manganese alloys, which typically takes shape in July, will be the first formal pricing reference that reflects how the seasonal lull has resolved. That negotiation is worth watching closely, both for the absolute level it reaches and for what it signals about how major buyers in China and Europe are reading second half demand.
## MARKET OUTLOOK
A $0.5 per dmtu decline in June contract pricing is not a warning. It is a seasonal adjustment in a market that entered 2026 from a position of genuine strength and is now pausing while buyers assess inventory positions and wait for second half demand signals.
The floor under manganese ore prices is well supported. India's structural import demand is not going away. China's steelmaking activity, while slower than in previous years, is not collapsing. And the battery sector is quietly building a parallel demand base that will matter more with each passing year.
Buyers who treat the current window as an opportunity to manage procurement costs and extend contract coverage on reasonable terms may find the logic of that decision looks quite sound when the Q3 benchmark lands.