Asian Metal visits Guizhou Nengkuang Manganese, Xingyin Manganese, Eastern Mining, Fengda Alloys and Xiangxi Debang Chemical Co., Ltd.

Frank Chen, manganese market analyst of Asian Metal visited Guizhou Nengkuang Manganese Group Co., Ltd., Huayuan Xingyin Manganese Co., Ltd., Hunan Eastern Mining Co., Ltd., Xiangxi Fengda Alloys. Co., Ltd. and Xiangxi Debang Chemical Co., Ltd. during August 13-15th, and was welcomed by the five enterprises.

On the afternoon of August 13th, Asian Metal visited Guizhou Nengkuang Manganese, which is held by Guizhou Geological & Mineral Resources Development Co., Ltd. and Hunan Coran Industry & Commerce Co., Ltd., with a production capacity of 35,000tpy for manganese flake. Mr. Xuemei Xiao, the marketing manager, guided Asian Metal to visit the manganese workshop, and introduced the recent production and sales of the company. Mr. Xiao revealed that they adopt the cash spot during most of the deals in order to ensure fund flow.

On the morning of August 14th, Asian Metal visited Huayuan Xingyin Manganese Co., Ltd. Mr. Shaowu Ma, the general manager, cited that the manganese flake plant has kept stable production so far in 2014, with an output of 50tpd, 90% of which will be supplied to their regular customers. Mr. Ma said that they still can gain little profit even at the current price of RMB12,800/t (USD2,074/t) ex-works, as costs of manganese ore, power and human resources increased a lot in the past three years.

On the afternoon of August 14th, Asian Metal went to Hunan Eastern Mining Co., Ltd., which was established by the local other 8 manganese companies and put into operation in September 2013. Currently, the plant has 6 production lines, with 2 of them producing 60t of manganese flake in total per day, while the other 4 lines are yet to be started. Mr. Changlong Li, the sales manager claimed that the plant leads other producers on mechanization and standardization, and is preparing for release of the third production line.

On the morning of August 15th, Asian Metal visited Xiangxi Fengda Alloys. Co., Ltd., and was welcomed by Mr. Bo Yang and Miss Yuqin Fu, the sales managers. The company was wholly owned by Xiangxi Minmetals Co., Ltd., and ranks first in exports of manganese metals and manganese nitrogen. Mr. Yang conveyed that the company aims to build the supermarket for global manganese products.

On the afternoon of August 15th, Asian Metal visited Xiangxi Debang Chemical Co., Ltd. and interviewed Mr. Degen Chen, the chairman and general manager. According to Mr. Chen, the company is the first Chinese manganese flake plant which use 100% of imported manganese oxide ore and successfully achieved 4 patents like Restoring Manganese Oxide Ore by Inner Heating Method. Mr. Chen believed that it is an irresistible trend that more and more Chinese manganese flake plants will use imported manganese ore for production, since grades of manganese carbonate ore are dropping in China. In addition, he does not think that Chinese steel mills can replace more manganese metals by ferromanganese and silicomanganese, as they should ensure the quality of steel products, so demand for manganese metals will keep stable in general in the coming 1-2 years.