Euro Manganese says US cathode specialist Wildcat Discovery Technologies is planning to take a “significant” amount of manganese produced by the Chvaletice project in Czechia, the European Union’s only sizeable resource of the battery metal.

The project aims to annually produce 98,600 tonnes of high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) at 32.3% manganese and 14,890 tonnes of high-purity electrolytic manganese metal at 99.9%. HPMSM was selling in Shanghai for around $700 a tonne in March, according to S&P Global Markets.

No specific tonnage amounts nor dollar figures were given in the news release on Monday about the offtake term sheet with Wildcat. It would run for an initial seven years with an opportunity for renewal, Euro Manganese said.

“This long-term offtake term sheet represents a significant percentage of the planned production of the Chvaletice manganese project over time,” Euro Manganese CEO Matthew James said in a news release.

Shares of Euro Manganese surged 14% by early afternoon in Toronto on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $16 million.

San Diego-based Wildcat plans to build a plant in the US in 2026-2027 to produce cobalt/nickel-free cathode materials for electric vehicle battery cells and other markets including stationary storage.

High purity

The Chvaletice project envisions selling 2.5 million tonnes of HPMSM and 372,300 tonnes of high-purity electrolytic manganese metal over its life.

The project entails re-processing manganese deposits contained in tailings from a decommissioned mine that operated between 1951 and 1975.

Euro Manganese plans to convert the carbonate to high-purity manganese metal and sulphate and send them to its planned processing facility in Quebec, where they will be converted into a liquid sulphate.

The site is adjacent to two proposed cathode plants, allowing the liquid sulphate to be piped directly into the cathode production processes.