The K.Hill manganese project is being developed in Botswana by Canadian mineral resource development company Giyani Metals (Giyani).
The project will produce high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate (HPMSM) and is expected to be one of the world’s biggest HPMSM projects.
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In January 2024, Giyani received the Environmental Authorisation for the project, followed by a 25-year surface rights lease for both the K.Hill project area and its planned solar farm site in July 2024.
The project received its mining licence from the Ministry of Minerals and Energy of Botswana in September 2024.
A feasibility study (FS) for the project was completed in November 2022, while a definitive feasibility study (DFS) was completed in May 2026. The DFS contemplates a project life of 25 years for an initial capital expenditure of $535.2m (C$742.31).
K.Hill project location
The K.Hill Project is situated next to the town of Kanye, the administrative centre of the Southern District in the Republic of Botswana.
It lies within Mining Licence (ML) ML0434/2024, which covers 9.97km2, and is contained within the boundaries of Prospecting Licence (PL) PL322/2016.
Geology and mineralisation
The stratigraphy in the project area primarily comprises late-Archean to early and middle-Proterozoic-era rocks, which belong to the Ventersdorp and Transvaal supergroups, as well as the early-Precambrian Gaborone Granite and late Waterberg groups.
The manganese mineralisation at the project site occurs in the form of supergene-enriched manganese (Mn) shale found in two horizons, namely the upper Mn-shale and the lower Mn-shale, which are separated by around 4m of shale waste rock. These horizons are situated within the upper part of a larger shale package in the Black Reef Quartzite formation of the Transvaal supergroup.
Reserves at the K.Hill project
The proven and probable mineral reserves at the K.Hill project were estimated to be 5.35 million tonnes (mt) grading 12% manganese and 15.5% manganosite as of April 2026.
Mining of the manganese project
The K.Hill project is expected to be developed as a conventional open-pit operation using truck-and-shovel methods, with drilling and blasting providing support where required.
Planned annual production is set at 300,000t of run-of-mine (ROM) ore, alongside 3.33mt of waste, based on a strip ratio of 11.1:1.
The orebody consists of four principal horizons with mining planned to advance in stages along the ridge from north to south, starting with the shallow, higher-grade A seam. Later stages are intended to extend mining into the deeper B and C seams.
The selected mining fleet includes hydraulic excavators in the 85–90t class and haul trucks in the 30–40t class, reflecting productivity needs, haul distances and operational flexibility.
Processing at K.Hill manganese project
The processing plant at K.Hill has been designed to treat 220,000t per annum of dry ROM ore to produce two primary products, HPMSM and high purity manganese oxide (HPMO). A saleable ammonium sulphate stream will also be recovered as a by-product.
The mineralised material comprises manganese and iron shales and is classified as a soft ore that is suitable for reductive acid leaching. The ROM ore will undergo crushing and milling to reduce it to the required particle size before being treated in a reductive acid leach circuit at elevated temperatures.
The leach discharge, containing manganese sulphate along with impurities such as iron, aluminium and base metals, will be purified via an iron and aluminium precipitation circuit, followed by ion exchange to remove remaining base metal impurities.
The purified solution will then progress to a precipitation stage, with the filtered solids redissolved in acid to generate a manganese sulphate solution. This solution will be fed to the HPMSM crystalliser to produce HPMSM.
The purge stream from the HPMSM crystalliser retains a high manganese content in solution, which will be recovered through precipitation and converted into HPMO, then filtered, dried and bagged.
Liquor from the HPMO conversion step contains mainly ammonium sulphate, which will be directed to water recovery for calcium removal. The stream will then be subsequently concentrated using reverse osmosis and crystallised to produce saleable ammonium sulphate.
Infrastructure details
The project site can be accessed through unpaved roads and tracks from paved national roads A1 and A2. It is located 5km from the A2 highway.
Power will be delivered through a new 132kV tie-in from Botswana Power Corporation’s (BPC) Mmakgodumo substation.
The power infrastructure required for the project includes a new 11kV consumer substation near the site and a 33kV high-voltage line, delivered by BPC, from the main Kanye substation located north of the town.
This will be complemented by a 20MW-alternating current photovoltaic solar facility built on 39 hectares of land and procured under a build-own-operate-transfer structure, helping to lessen dependence on the grid and reduce emissions.
Emergency power will be derived from eight 550V, 50Hz emergency diesel-driven generators.
Demonstration plant at K.Hill manganese mine
Giyani Metals developed a demonstration plant in Johannesburg at a 1:10 scale of the planned commercial scale. The demonstration plant comprises nine process modules designed to optimise and validate the process flowsheet.
The first HPMO was produced at the demonstration plant in March 2025, followed by HPMSM in September of the same year.
The company also shipped initial HPMO samples from the demonstration plant earlier in May to several potential offtakers for testing and qualification.
Project financing
In November 2023, Giyani Metals signed definitive agreements for $16m in financing with the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC), structured as convertible loan facilities.
In January 2024, the company secured an additional $10m in funding from ARCH Sustainable Resources Fund, a private equity fund with an environmental, social and governance mandate.
Giyani Metals agreed an addendum to its existing convertible loan facility arrangements with the IDC in March 2026. The changes applied to the facility provided to its wholly owned subsidiary, Giyani Metals South Africa Proprietary (GMSA), and included an increase of R29.9m ($1.7m), which was drawn down and received that month.
The additional funding supported continued operations at the company’s demonstration plant, enabling further HPMSM production. Material produced is being prepared for analysis by potential offtakers.
Contractors involved
SRK Consulting (Kazakhstan) was appointed to prepare the preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the K.Hill project in 2019. Coffey Geotechnics, a Tetra Tech company, was appointed to perform mineral processing and metallurgical testing for the PEA.
SRK Consulting (Kazakhstan) and Coffey Geotechnics, in collaboration with IHC Mining, prepared the FS report for the project. IHC and Tetra Tech were responsible for the FS aspects such as processing plant, infrastructure and project execution.
Botswana-based company Loci Environmental Management and Consulting was contracted to undertake an environmental and social impact assessment for the project in January 2020.
South Africa-based engineering consultant MET63 was responsible for the design and construction of the demonstration plant.
UK-based consultancy Minviro provided the life cycle assessment based on the FS in 2022.
Giyani appointed RotsDrill Exploration, a drilling services provider based in Botswana, to undertake diamond drilling at the project site. Stewardship Drilling and Master Drilling were engaged to conduct reverse circulation drilling for the project.
The DFS was prepared by Wood with inputs from ERM Global, Knight Piesold, Ukwazi Mining Studies, Loci Environmental and Coastal & Environmental Services.
