Alderon Iron Ore Corp AXXDF

Manganese

[ElanS2]

Alderon is shooting for a product with 2% manganese. Wabushes concentrate is lower at 1.2% and higher, but still less than Alderon. Wabush has never increased its production since project start-up in the 60's. Manganese causes a rise in coal consumption in blast furnaces. It is not something that steel companies want unless blending it with ore that has no manganese results in some production benefit and the mn bearing feed is especially low in price. There is a limited market for a 2% mn iron ore concentrate. Cliffs would like to blend the Wabush product with the Bloom Lake product, but the logistics will not be easy as the railcars are so different  that it is not evident how to do it without investing $. It may be possible at the ship loading step by alternatively loading one type over another. In any case costs will go up.

Bloom Lake was built to be sold. Cliffs is now finding out what that means as the mining operation is getting expensive (it wasn't at the very start). The ship loading operation was a temporary affaire waiting for a deep water dock to reduce terminal costs. Cliffs is not interested in Alderon. IOC isn't either. Who will buy Alderon? Maybe nobody and it will have to survive on it's own and on prices penalized by the presence of mn.  Good luck to the longs.