Nava Bharat Ventures (NBVL) has terminated the conversion agreement with Tata Steel Mining (TSML) for the production of ferrochrome and will convert the furnace in November to produce ferromanganese.

The conversion agreement in place was signed until March 2025 but according to NBVL, technical difficulties at its plant have impaired high-carbon ferrochrome (HC FeCr) production. The company believes that the conversion to produce manganese alloys allows greater economies of scale to enter the larger steel market.

HC FeCr is destined for the more "niche" stainless steel market (58Mtpy), compared to the use of ferromanganese in all crude steel production (1,890Mtpy). Despite the smaller downstream market, according to Project Blue, the total volumes of manganese consumed in steel is only about 50% larger than the total chromium volumes consumed.

The steel market, including stainless, enjoyed two decades of solid growth with China now accounting for over 50% of global production. However, the trend for total steel production is set to bifurcate from that of stainless steel. While still growing globally, the switch in China’s strategy to limit steel production is slowing manganese demand growth to around 1%py for the 2020s, while chromium demand is set to continue to prosper from a 2.7%py growth over the same period.