Demonstration plant to start producing offtake samples

This morning our European battery metals Investment Euro Manganese (ASX: EMN) started commissioning its manganese demo plant.

We’ve been waiting for this, as we think it could be key to accelerating competitive tension around EMN’s high-purity manganese products.

EMN confirmed that the bulk of the installation works had been completed and as part of commissioning the plant testing had commenced.

Below is a screenshot from a video that shows the plant being installed in place. The ASX announcement also had a bunch of photos that help understand what EMN has put together.

The installation and start up of the demonstration plant is key objective #1 of our EMN Investment Memo because we believe it was a crucial precursor for the company to be able to market its product to potential offtake partners.

Interestingly, in today’s announcement, EMN confirmed that it was now in discussions with no less than 12 different companies (including automotive OEMs, EV battery and cathode manufacturers, and speciality alloy manufacturers) with respect to samples.

EMN also confirmed that due to strong demand for its high-purity manganese product samples its pilot plant in China was turned on for a second time and that samples were now ready to be shipped from that site to potential customers.

Whilst today’s news was specifically about the demo plant, we think it has repercussions for three of the four key objectives we set for EMN as part of our Investment Memo.

To see those objectives in detail, the reasons why we are Invested in EMN and the key risks to our Investment thesis, click on the image below.