11 Jan 2006

Vanuatu to export first manganese for 25 years

3:48 pm on 11 January 2006

Vanuatu is in the process of exporting its first 5-hundred tonnes of the mineral manganese since independence.

The Daily Post newspaper reports Vanuatu Project Management Limited is in the process of exporting 5-hundred tonnes of manganese.

The 22 containers are said to be already packed with the mineral and waiting at the wharf for shipment overseas.

This is the first load from piles of manganese left behind by a French company which mined the mineral at Forari in north eastern Efate until the early 1970s.

The mine township was home to thousands of workers.