Manganese Ore

Manganese: What do cars, homes, bridges, and skyscrapers all have in common? Steel. Manganese is essential and irreplaceable in steelmaking. The United States has been totally reliant on imports of manganese for decades. Plus, just a few nations dominate the global manganese mining industry. For example, the Kalahari manganese district in South Africa has 70% of the world’s identified manganese resources, and about 25 % of its reserves. The combination of total import reliance for manganese, the mineral commodity’s essential uses in our industrialized society, and the potential for supply disruptions because of the limited sources of the ore makes manganese among the most critical minerals for the United States. Image credit: By Andrew Silver - United States Geological Survey, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18409882