Morocco’s Ermazon begins local manganese mining operations: Morocco-based mining company Ermazon SARL — a subsidiary of Canada’s Elcora Advanced Materials — kicked off manganese ore extraction and deliveries after securing future orders for its offerings, according to a statement released last week. The company plans to expand mining operations in the kingdom through new projects and racked in revenues for 2Q 2023, signifying a swift return on investment, Morocco World News reports. Manganese is an essential component of EV batteries and a key input in green tech. The Moroccan government granted Elcora a license to extract and process manganese in a 16 sq km mining concession last March.

Not Elcora’s first Moroccan venture: The company tapped mining tech solutions firm Lab 4 for the design and testing of its planned vanadium pentoxide plant in Morocco last April. Elcora’s Ermazon Vanadium Project aims to use extracted vanadium to produce vanadium pentoxide, an industrial chemical used as a catalyst in the production of redox flow batteries, a type of battery that is being studied and deployed globally for large-scale grid storage projects.

OTHER STORIES WORTH KNOWING ABOUT THIS MORNING-

• It’s a kickoff for TotalEnergies in Iraq: French oil giant TotalEnergies has activated its USD 27 bn cluster of energy projects—which includes oil, gas, renewable energy and seawater projects—in Iraq. (Iraq News Agency)