The heat transfer from the side-wall of a duct through which an electrically conducting fluid flows within a strong transverse magnetic field is investigated. A circular cylinder aligned with the magnetic field is offset from the duct centerline. In this configuration the flow is well described by a quasi-two-dimen- sional model and is therefore solved on a two-dimensional domain. The effects of blockage ratio, gap ratio and Reynolds number on the flow and heat transfer are considered. An optimal cylinder position is deter- mined using an efficiency index defined as the ratio of heat transfer enhancement to pressure drop pen- alty resulting from insertion of the cylinder in the channel. Cylinder placement with gaps to the heated wall of between 0.83 and 1.4 diameters performed best, achieving at least 95% of the peak efficiency indi- ces for each blockage ratio. These gap ratios corresponded to the periodic shedding of alternating-sign vortices into the wake which interacted with the heated side-wall boundary layer to form counter-rotat- ing vortex pairs carrying hot fluid into the duct interior. By offsetting the cylinder from the wake centr- eline, heat transfer enhancement of up to 48% compared to the centreline placement is achieved with only a modest increase in the pressure head losses from cylinder drag.