Manganese: Paris aims to become Eramet's largest shareholder, three years before Gabon's ban on raw exports

The Élysée announced on October 12, 2026, that the French state would "significantly increase" its stake in Eramet, the mining group that extracts Gabonese manganese through its subsidiary, Comilog. According to Ecomatin, Paris will participate in a capital increase of up to 500 million euros by the end of the year to become "very comfortably" the group's largest shareholder, without exceeding 50% of the capital.

The state held just over 27% of the capital at the end of 2025, while the Duval family held 37.22%. According to the Agence Ecofin, the state also plans to purchase all or part of the family's preferential subscription rights, and the operation still requires certain authorizations. The group is emerging from a difficult year: a net loss of 477 million euros in 2025 according to Ecomatin, and a net debt of 1.87 billion euros at the end of June 2026, according to the Agence Ecofin.

Libreville has set a deadline: 2029

This move by Paris comes at a time when Gabon, the source of a large portion of Eramet's manganese, wants to stop exporting its ore in raw form. In May 2025, Libreville announced its intention to ban these exports starting January 1, 2029, to mandate local processing.

A memorandum of understanding signed in July 2026 between Eramet and the Gabonese government provides for the study of three scenarios to locally process up to 700,000 tons of ore per year by the end of 2031, reports the Agence Ecofin: the renovation of the Moanda metallurgical complex, with a projected capacity of 70,000 tons of alloys per year and a target restart by the end of 2029; a new plant on the coast with a capacity of 265,000 tons of alloys per year starting in 2031; and a manganese oxide unit near Libreville, planned for 2028.

Plants that would arrive after the ban

The timeline remains fragile. According to the Agence Ecofin, these projects depend on sufficient and competitive electricity, logistical infrastructure, and financing decisions that have yet to be made; some of the capacity would only be operational after the ban on raw ore comes into effect. None of the announced recapitalization has been allocated to the Gabonese projects, the same source specifies.

The "ReSolution" recovery plan, presented in December 2025, also relies on productivity gains in manganese, linked in particular to the modernization of the Trans-Gabon Railway, which is financed by France and the European Union.

The stakes go beyond the Paris Stock Exchange: it is a question of who will determine the value added of Gabonese manganese and where it will be created. Gabon has set a date. It remains to be seen whether the plants, energy, and financing will follow before January 1, 2029.