Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg is looking to invest in mining projects throughout Africa as his Renova Group moves forward with a large manganese and ferro-alloy project in South Africa.

Vekselberg, Russia’s fifth-richest man, told Reuters in an interview on Friday Renova would complete a feasibility study into the manganese project in the first quarter of 2007.

“South Africa is very interesting territory for us,” he said. “The project alone is huge … It needs major investments, not only in itself, but in infrastructure, roads, energy and logistics,” he said.

Renova agreed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to South Africa in September to spend over $1 billion building a ferro-alloy plant near the eastern coastal city of Port Elizabeth with capacity to produce 300,000 tonnes a year.

At the time, Vekselberg said the plant would be built over three years. “The project is on track,” he said on Friday.

“We see South Africa as a base to enter the next countries in the region, like Namibia, Ghana, Congo, Mozambique,” Vekselberg said. “We have many teams working there to look at entering these markets, firstly in the mining sector.”

Renova, which had net assets of $9 billion at the end of 2005, is a shareholder in several mining and industrial entities, including aluminium producer SUAL and TNK-BP , oil major BP’s joint venture in Russia.

In South Africa, the group owns 49 percent of United Manganese of Kalahari. If the feasibility study shows favourable results, the company intends to build a pit with annual capacity of 1.5 million to 2 million tonnes, Renova says on its Web site.

Manganese is used to toughen steel. About 80 percent of world reserves are in South Africa.

Renova is also searching for manganese, platinum group metals, gold and uranium in Gabon, an former French colony on Africa’s west coast.

MONGOLIAN COAL

Renova is part of a three-way Russian consortium — also including steel maker Severstal and Basic Element, which groups aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska’s various assets — considering investment in a large coal deposit in Mongolia.

“We are looking at the option of taking part in the privatisation of this,” Vekselberg said.

“There are still studies on-going and a final decision has not been made. I expect it by the end of the year,” he said.

Peabody Energy Corp. , the world’s largest coal miner, and Japan’s Itochu Corp. and Mitsubishi Corp. have also expressed interest in the Tavan Tolgoi deposit.

Renova, through a company called Ural Platinum, also owns platinum and palladium deposits on the Kola peninsula of northwestern Russia. The deposits are located next to similar properties owned by Barrick Gold Corp. and Consolidated Puma Minerals Corp. .

“These are still under study and we have not made a final decision on their development,” Vekselberg said.