The metallurgy of manganese in France at the beginning of the 20th century

Situation of the manganese industry in France at the beginning of the 20th century Among the three mills which pioneered the metallurgy of manganese in the blast furnace (Terrenoire, Montlucon and Saint-Louis near Marseille), only the last one is still in operation in 1900. It supplies essentially all the ferromanganese that is consumed in France. However the overall situation has changed : the discovery of the Thomas process has allowed to use the Lorraine iron ore to produce steel and the steel mills have moved to this region, away, from the Saint-Louis blast furnaces. The company owning this mill had to renew at the same time a 50 years contract for the lighting of the city of Marseille by gas, while electricity was more and more used for that purpose. This meant important investments. In 1905, social problems in Russia led to the shutdown of the manganese ore mine of Tchiatouri which supplied Marseille and also the international market via the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The blast furnaces of Saint-Louis looked therefore for a more favourable location. They came to an agreement with the steel company of Paris-Outreau, which operated blast furnaces at Outreau, near Boulogne-sur-Mer on the Channel. It was decided to move a furnace from Marseille to Outreau and cart-v on there the production of ferromanganese.